Tuesday, August 24, 2010

2009 USIC Award Recipient

Congratulations to CGC SHERMAN! We are the recipients of the 2009 USIC (United States Interdiciton Coordinator) Award- Superior Performance Award for Maritime Interdiction. On August 18th, 2009, Mr. Patrick Ward, the Assistant Deputy Director for Supply Reduction in the Office of National Drug Control Policy and President Obama's right hand man for drug interdiction in the United States, flew out from Washington, DC to present the SHERMAN with the award. The crew of SHERMAN has been cited for their distinguished performance during our 2009 JIATF South deployment.

On December 4th, 2009, a maritime patrol aircraft observed a contraband offload in progress and vectored SHERMAN toward the four "Go-Fast" vessels. The sheer number of targets created an extremely difficult and potentially hazardous mission. SHERMAN and the HITRON Detachment 10-01 applied superb "outside of the box" thinking to modify the existing standard operating procedures (SOP) in order to interdict all four "Go-Fast" vessels during a single mission. Outstanding mission execution resulted in the arrival of the cutter boat to secure the scene within minutes after each "Go-Fast" vessel was disabled through the use of disabling fire from the HITRON Detachment. As a result, 3 metric tons of cocaine were seized or disrupted, four go-fasts were interdicted, and nine suspected smugglers were detained and handed over to the Mexican Government for prosecution based on the evidence obtained and the case package from CGC SHERMAN.

Bravo Zulu!
-ENS KC Gaudette