Left to right: CDR Brad Herter, LCDR Richard Gibbs, CAPT William Brinkmier, CDR Peter S. Heins, CAPT Gene Patterson and CDR Robert L. Treat, attending the Anniversary Reunion party for CGRU Air Station Miami. One former CO who was missing was CDR Wallace "Wally" S. Pawley, who was CO when I reported to the unit in 1978.
Unfortunately, CDR Herter, a great guy in my book, wasn't our CO for long after this photo was taken, and the Captain who was the Commander of the newly created Reserve Aviation Group and over reserve aviation units at Clearwater, Savannah and Miami, and who we never saw in person for years until he decided to have his retirement ceremony planned at Air Station Miami, put one of his HC-130 driver buddies into the slot to replace CDR Herter or so the story goes.
The new CO, an Academy graduate, who commuted monthly to Miami from the Charlotte, North Carolina area, apparently hated Warrant Officers and me in particular because he was always badmouthing me to my subordinates when I wasn't there and they would tip me off when I returned. It was amusing to me and I put up with this hostile workplace crap for years because he was like a little pimple on my ass in the whole scheme of life. At the briefing and conclusion of a District inspection toward the end days of the unit, the inspector who reviewed the admin section of our unit stated that we earned an "outstanding in the admin area, thanks to CWO Boyd" and the CO immediately spoke up, in front of the unit members and the inspection team members, and said "You mean, in spite of him!" I would have thought that the Captain in charge of the inspection team, from the Atlanta area and in Delta Air Lines management in real life, would have spoken up at such an insult to a subordinate officer in front of the unit's members but he was disappointingly stone silent as I turned to look at him to see his reaction.
After 23 previous years of above average and outstanding evaluations despite my tendencies to speak my mind no matter how critical my comments were, including 8 years as a YNC, it surely seemed peculiar that my OER's from this CO with the Napoleonic complex were horrible. He also added insult to injury by complaining to me that the only way you could hurt a Warrant Officer with a bad OER was to crumple it up and jam it into the Warrant's eyes. Of course he couldn't try that because he would have ended up paralyzed for life, if he lived. At this point in my career I had 5 CO/OIC's during my four years active duty time, 9 or more CO's in reserve units, plus countless active duty command CO's where I performed my annual active duty, and all of them were pleased to have me in their commands.
Fortunately for me, the Air Station Miami Reserve Unit was decommissioned in 1994 and I was transferred to the Seventh District Reserve Unit and I received outstanding OER's from Commander Robert "Bob" Grant who later made Captain, and who went on active duty to become Deputy Chief of Staff for the Seventh Coast Guard District for over at least ten years. Two years later most of our unit members were absorbed by the newly created Integrated Support Command Miami (they still owe me a Plankowner's Certificate) which I served in for another four happy years on a waiver granted to senior members who had 30 years of service because the reserve program was seriously short of authorized manpower levels.
