After boot camp Anderson was assigned to a buoy tender in Galveston, Texas, serving through tropical storms. He then went to engineering school in Yorktown, Virginia where he graduated at the top of the class. Then, life changed for not only Anderson, but the rest of the world.
“The last three or four days when I was getting ready to graduate in September, the 9-11 terrorist attack happened,” he said. “We quickly graduated and I went to a 110-foot patrol boat, named the Key Largo, down in Key West, Florida. Our primary mission was to stop illegal migrants, drug interdiction, mammal protection, search and rescue — but right after 9-11, we were deployed on a mission that I really can’t talk about, even now.”
Anderson said the primary mission was to protect nuclear submarines “in a specific area that was a point of target.” Providing that extra level of security was vital, Anderson said, in the two months following the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.
After the deployment, the Cutter Key Largo and crew headed back to Florida, where Anderson was active in medical operations, law enforcement activities, search and rescue, and migrant interdiction.
Anderson said treating people right and honorably when they were trying to enter the United States from Cuba was a key memory for him.
“We had some Cuban migrants on board and one lady had an ectopic pregnancy and she was bleeding to death,” Anderson said. “I was able to control the bleeding while we were wild out, full speed ahead trying to meet a rescue helicopter.”
Credit: Source link
