The Coast Guard’s 12th master chief petty officer and his deputy said they were “ashamed” of Congress and the Trump administration for failing to reopen the government.
The partial shutdown — the longest in U.S. history — has caused nearly 41,000 active-duty Coast Guardsmen designated as “essential personnel” to work without pay.
“The most demoralizing thing a child can hear from their parents is ‘I am so ashamed of you’ when they do something stupid,” Steven Cantrell and Leilani Cale-Jones wrote in an op-ed on Military.com. “To our congressional and administration leadership, we say: We are so ashamed of you.”
The partial government shutdown has lingered for almost a month due to a dispute over border wall funding. While President Trump has requested more than $5 billion for a border wall to dampen illegal immigration and aid national security, Democrats have rejected his proposal.
Although other military services have not been affected by the partial shutdown because they receive funding from the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard receives funding from the Department of Homeland Security — one of the agencies impacted by the partial shutdown. The service members missed a paycheck on Jan. 15.
Cantrell and Cale-Jones praised those in the Coast Guard community volunteering at homeless shelters and establishing food pantries, among other things, as their households and lives are “in as much turmoil as those they are helping.”
“These patriots do not carry out the missions of the U.S. Coast Guard protecting and defending our great country to get rich, but they have the right to expect to be paid as entitled and when due as anyone else would,” they wrote.
“Our motto of Semper Paratus will still be there when this shutdown ends, but it is equally important to put a tremendous spotlight on the good work our active, reserve, civilian and retiree members are doing to remain Semper Paratus for each other during this awful time,” they wrote.
The comments come after Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz posted a video on Twitter Tuesday and claimed that members of the armed forces “should not be expected to shoulder this burden” of not being paid.
“Ultimately, I find it unacceptable that Coast Guard men and women have to rely on food pantries and donations to get through day-to-day life as service members,” he said.
Cantrell retired from the Coast Guard in 2018, and served as the Coast Guard’s 12th master chief petty officer for four years. Cale-Jones also retired from the Coast Guard in 2018, according to her LinkedIn profile.
