Help for Coast Guard

The USO is collecting gift cards to help with expenses during the government shutdown.

Coast Guardsmen conducting rescue operations and breaking ice on the Great Lakes won’t get paychecks Tuesday because of the federal government shutdown.

Like other federal workers working without pay, Coast Guard members and their families are facing hardship paying bills, buying groceries and filling gas tanks.

To help, USO Wisconsin has started a gift card collection for local Coast Guardsmen and their families.

“We’ve been getting calls and we’ve been talking to families of the Coast Guard,” said USO Wisconsin Executive Director Josh Sova. “They’re very concerned they won’t get paychecks and they’re worried they can’t make rent or buy food.”

Unlike other branches of the military that are part of the Defense Department and continue to get funding during the longest government shutdown, the U.S. Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security.

On Friday, Sova met a woman in Milwaukee whose husband is serving in the Coast Guard. She explained to Sova the difficulty in meeting expenses since her husband won’t get a paycheck this week. She didn’t know where they would get money for a tank of gas for him to drive to his duty station.

“Military members always come to the USO first when things happen. Most of them don’t ask for help; it’s the military and they have a lot of pride,” Sova said.

Frequently military families only have one source of income since it’s difficult for spouses to get employment because of frequent moves in the military, which means some Coast Guard families are living paycheck to paycheck, Sova said.

Sova contacted a Coast Guard officer in the Lake Michigan sector who told him that Coast Guardsmen cannot legally accept gifts of more than $20. So USO Wisconsin is seeking donations of gift cards in denominations of $20 or less for gas stations and general merchandise stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, Meijer and Pick ‘N Save.

“It will be nice to give everybody something so they know the community supports them. We want to take care of our neighbors and our co-workers who are out there risking their lives for us,” Sova said.

USO Wisconsin will give the gift cards to Coast Guard officers who will dole them out to families in need, Sova said.

The Lake Michigan Coast Guard sector has 21 stations on Lake Michigan covering four states including Wisconsin with 541 active-duty Coast Guardsmen, 208 Coast Guard reservists and 15 civilian personnel, said Master Chief Petty Officer Alan Haraf, a district pub-

lic affairs officer based in Chicago. Some Coast Guard stations close in the winter and reopen in warmer months.

Nationwide, about 41,000 activeduty Coast Guardsmen are working without pay. Like other federal workers, they will eventually get their salaries once the shutdown is over and Congress votes to give them back pay. But no one knows when that will be.

Coast Guard members get paid twice a month and Tuesday’s paycheck will be the first with zero dollars since the shutdown went into effect because the agency was funded through the end of December, Haraf said.

Last week the Coast Guard Support Program, an employee-assistance part of the agency, published a five-page tip sheet that drew criticism when among the tips it suggested to get by without paychecks included babysitting, dogwalking, garage sales and working as mystery shoppers.

The “Managing your finances during a furlough” tip sheet for the Coast Guard’s 8,500-person civilian workforce was reported by the Washington Post and taken down after the newspaper inquired about it.

In addition to search and rescue operations and ice-breaking missions, the Coast Guard on Lake Michigan handles law enforcement, port and railways management, and environmental cleanup when there are oil and chemical spills.

Like other federal agencies affected by the shutdown, Coast Guard commanders are providing guidance and letters for Coast Guardsmen to give to banks, mortgage companies, credit card firms and other companies asking for leniency.

The loss of pay during the shutdown will be felt differently by different people, Haraf said.

“Our younger Coast Guard men and women who are just starting out and may have families and kids to send to school or childcare, it will affect them deeply,” Haraf said.

Despite the shutdown and not knowing when they will be paid, Haraf said morale remains good among Coast Guardsmen in the Lake Michigan sector.

“Coast Guard men and women love what they do. It’s our job,” said Haraf, who has served in the Coast Guard for 23 years. The shutdown “is certainly something we’re all thinking about, but for the most part people are still reporting for duty and standing the watch.”