Dickey assumes command at Coast Guard’s 5th District
Changes of command, especially involving admirals, are usually solemn ceremonies — but at the Portsmouth-based 5th Coast Guard District, they can seem more like a family affair.
There's the fact that the new commander, Rear Adm. Laura M. Dickey, comes from a Coast Guard family and grew up on Coast Guard stations in the 5th district.
Then there were the tales about the way outgoing commander, Rear Adm. Keith Smith, made a point of visiting every station in the North Carolina-to-New Jersey district and sitting down with the most junior members of the service.
For Smith, who worked his way up from an enlisted season to flag rank, those juniors are important voices to hear — even if, as he joked at the change of command ceremony, some of the comments could be easily misread, like the ones about why he hadn't retired already or that he looked younger than his photos.
Families and the support
they offer were the talking point for Vice Adm. Steven Poulin, Atlantic Area commanderandSmith'sfriendof three decades as he presided over the celebration.
“You serve as much as we do who wear the uniform; you've had to endure the hardships of deployment, you've had to endure the hardships of crisis response on short notice,” he said.
That crisis response included, just 30 days into Smith's term as commander, the challenge of Hurricane Florence slamming into the North Carolina coast.
During his two years at
5th district, its Coast Guardsmen conducted 75,000 missions, including 3,000 search and rescue operations, saving1,000 lives.
Their law enforcement work included the nation's second largest seizure of drugs — 20 tons of cocaine in the port of Philadelphia. The 5th district also pushed cutters to the far limits of range to patrol routes from the Caribbean into U.S. waters, pioneering new ways of coordinating with the Coast Guard's C-130 aircraft. Smith was awarded the Legion of Merit for, as he put it, with thanks, the work of the 5th district's team.
Dickey, a career cutter officer with 12 years afloat on search and rescue, law enforcement and homeland security operations in the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Bering Sea and Arctic, comes to the 5th district from a posting as deputy director of operations for the U.S. Northern Command, based in Colorado.
“It gave meachancetosee the Coast Guard from the outside … a small service involved in just about anything that occurs on the water,” she said.
And, as someone with family, and a home on the North Carolina coast, the district captured her attention.
“Men and woman from across the district, sometimes flying in very adverse conditions and often working in extremely challenging circumstances to help the public by saving lives, reopening ports to keep commerce flowing and doing all the things that need to be done after a catastrophic event,” she said.