Coast Guardsman killed by smugglers
Eggs sends us a link to the LA Times which reports that Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III, 34, of Redondo Beach was killed off the coast of California when he was approaching a suspected smuggler’s vessel in an inflatable raft when the suspect vessel crew gunned their engine and rammed the smaller craft and fled the scene;
The impact knocked Horne and another Coast Guardsman into the water. Both were quickly plucked from the sea. Horne had suffered a traumatic head injury. While receiving medical care, he was raced to shore aboard the Halibut. Paramedics met the Halibut at the pier in Port Hueneme and declared Horne dead at 2:21 a.m.
The second crew member knocked into the water suffered minor injuries and was treated and released from a hospital later Sunday. He was not identified.
The Coast guard unit later apprehended the crew of the smugglers’ boat and they promise to bring all of the crew to justice.
[Horne] appears to have arrived in Southern California last summer after serving for two years as an executive petty officer in Emerald Isle, N.C. There, he received a Coast Guard Commendation Medal for his leadership in 63 search-and-rescue cases, in which 38 lives were saved.
According to an account of the medal ceremony, the most notable of those operations involved a boat that capsized in a North Carolina inlet in 2010. The account said Horne coached his team through “treacherous” sea conditions to rescue five people.
From the Associated Press;
“Our fallen shipmate stood the watch on the front lines protecting our nation, and we are all indebted to him for his service and sacrifice,” said Admiral Robert J. Papp, Coast Guard Commandant.
Category: Coast Guard
Justice would have been a 5″-50 HE round, but we have to feed the system.
I say take them back to where they were captured, drop a large bucket of ground up road kill in the water and then relive the quite from Jaws….
“Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte… just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. “….
Smooth seas Chief, RIP.
Shame that the rope and yard arm method of justice application is no longer politically correct.
May you rest peacefully in the arms of the Lord, Chief.
Rest well Chief …
Coast Guard Hymn
Eternal Father, Lord of Hosts
Watch o’er the ones who guard our coasts
Protect them from the raging seas
And give them light and life and peace.
Grant them from thy great throne above
The shield and shelter of thy love.
Lord, guard and guide the ones who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky
Be with them always in the air,
In darken storms or sunlight fair,
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!
Grant to them Your eternal peace, Oh Lord,
For they have followed your commandment,
That No Greater Love has he, who would give up his life for another.
Amen
The Coast Guard hymn, “Eternal Father, Lord of Hosts,” used to conclude every chapel service at the Academy, was written in 1955 by CWO George H. Jenks, Jr., USCG; and has become the personal prayer of many a Coast Guardsman ever since. Chief Warrant Officer Jenks was serving as the bandmaster of the Coast Guard and the originator and director of cadet musical activities at the Academy at the time the hymn was written. The hymn, while used throughout the Coast Guard, was not printed in any hymnal until the publication of the Book of Worship for United States Forces in 1974. In that hymnal it is included as stanza 10 of hymn number 196, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”
DHS Released moments ago:
December 3, 2012
Regarding the Death of USCG Boatswains Chief Mate Terrell Horne
Dear Colleagues,
I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of U.S. Coast Guard Boatswains Mate Chief Terrell Horne during a counter-drug operation yesterday morning near Santa Cruz Island, California. BMC Horne and his fellow crew members of the USCG Cutter Halibut were engaged in an at-sea interdiction when they came under threat by a small vessel that rammed their small boat. This tragedy reminds us of the dangers our men and women in uniform face every day, and the great risks they willingly take, as they protect our nation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of BMC Horne and all of our Coast Guard personnel at this difficult time.
Yours very truly,
Janet Napolitano
Well that’s a sad one. My first duty station was in that area. Marijuana smugglers no less. What’s this world coming to when the stoners turn violent?
Just another harmless drug with nobody hurt right?
Rest in peace Chief.
I am sorry for this Coast Guardsman’s death but I am also amazed at the attention it gets in view of how little attention others of our Fallen receive in comparison. Yes, I know the loss of a Coast Guardsman is rare in comparison to deaths in the ME and it garners much focus for that reason alone. I only wish each loss in each service received as much attention as this.
Semper Paratus Chief.
Eggs
USCG 1979-1984
I’ll also add that I found this story via the ihatethemedia.com website, nothing on Yahoo (unless you use the search) or Drudge for that matter.
Did hear about this on that nasty Faux network this morning. At least there is now a second source for the story: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/02/us-coast-guard-member-killed-in-crash-california-coast/?test=latestnews
RIP, Chief.
Fair Winds and Following Seas Chief.
Thoughts and prayers for him and his family.
Does the Coast Guard not have guns? The boast that rammed them should have been a smoking husk sinking to the bottom of the ocean after it rammed them.
The Coasties really don’t get much media attention. They dive into freezing waters up near Alaska to rescue crews on swampd fishing boats, drop in on hunters who got themselves stranded in bitter cold, rescue people in capsized boats on Lake Michigan and other lakes around here in ALL weather, keep the smugglers at bay along all the coastlines. To them, it’s their day-to-day business, nothing spectacular about it.
We just take them for granted, which we should not do.
RIP, Chief Horne.
“Just another harmless drug with nobody hurt right?”
I wonder why they’re not smuggling in alcohol or tobacco? Interesting, eh?
RIP Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III
Ex-PH2…..concur. When I was a young (stupid) buck, I useta tease them unmercifully. After 20 years in Alaska, I buy them beer. USCG is under-appreciated.
I may well have ended up a Coastie and not a Marine.
I applied to all the service academies and ROTC programs after high school. It was down to me taking my physical and getting rejection notifications for all of them because of an unwaverable eyesight flaw. I ended up enlisting, but if my eye was better, I might have been a CG officer.
I always respected them. They’re in a 24-7/365 war, every day and all day on Sunday. They’re at war with traffickers and smugglers at all times, not to mention saving an untold amount of asses.
RIP, Chief. You damn sure deserve it.
The smugglers were stopped by another CG boat and arrested:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/03/15652001-mexican-nationals-charged-in-us-coast-guardsmans-death?lite>1=43001
Now sitting in jail.
The number of smuggling incidents off the CA coast has increased a lot sinc 2008.
RIP, Chief.
Chief, may you rest-in-peace in the Lord’s eternal light.