I was assigned here from December 1967 to July 1970. Our recruiting office was on the ground floor and we were on the east end of the main hallway, next to the Air Force, then Marines and Army. The Navy was on the west end of the building.

We were responsible for all Coast Guard officer and enlisted recruiting in Central Florida, from the Gulf to the Atlantic, and from Ocala south to the north tip of Lake Okeechobee. We processed mostly 4-year active duty enlistments in the regular Coast Guard but also put in a reservist or two per month and several Officer Candidates and one Aviation Cadet (Richard N. V. Norat) who became a helo pilot and ended up serving 20-plus years as a pilot. I met him again in the early 90's after he retired when he was at Coast Guard Air Station Miami in his personal aircraft.

It was a 3-man office the majority of the time I was there, with YNCP Dale E. Seiberling as my first Officer-in-Charge but he wasn't there long, thankfully. RDCS Ned W. Farber replaced him as Officer-in-Charge and EN1 Donald D. Tucker was the assistant OIC. Both of them retired less than year before I got out. Senior Chief Farber was from Nebraska and Tucker was from Wildwood, Florida. BMCS Gary Smith replaced Senior Chief Farber as the Officer-in-Charge. Other recruiters assigned to us in 1969 were SD1 Bobby Elliott, ET1(?) Byge Miller and one more guy named Randall whose full name escapes me.

Being the junior man, I was tasked with preparing a zillion forms for each enlistment on a manual typewriter and then on one of the first new IBM Selectric typewriters when they came out in 1968 or 1969, ordering all office and recruiting supplies, getting all the physical exams properly completed at the U. S. Public Health Service, testing some of the applicants, submitting all required weekly-monthly-quarterly and annual reports, making road trips through Central Florida, speaking at high school and college career days, making radio public service spot announcements at radio stations all over Central Florida, and whatever else they gave me to do. It was great duty but most of the time I worked several nights a week and part of a day on weekends.