In December 1967 I received orders to Journalist School at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and I was also on the YN3 promotion list, while stationed at CG Station Lake Worth Inlet as a Seaman. The 7th District's Personnel Officer, CWO4 L. M. Roehr, asked me to come down to discuss which road I should pursue and he talked me into recruiting duty if I took the Yeoman promotion. Another reason I decided on Yeoman was due to the fact I could stay in Florida and not have to go to Indiana in the winter and then end up anywhere in the USCG.

The Tampa recruiting office was in the downtown Federal Building at 500 Zack Street. We were a three-man recruiting office most of the time I was assigned there. YNC(P) Dale Seiberling was the initial Officer-in-Charge and he was replaced by RDCS Ned W. Farber. EN1 Donald D. Tucker, from Wildwood, FL, was the other recruiter. We were responsible for all of Central Florida from Ocala on the north to the northern tip of Lake Okeechobee on the south and the Gulf to the Atlantic. One of us had to visit every post office in every little town and refill the USCG literature racks in their lobbies and change out the A-frame advertising signs from time to time, in addition to visiting schools and radio stations. Tucker did the literature rack and advertising signs most of the time and the Senior Chief went with him sometimes, leaving me alone in the office for three or four days a month. Toward the end of my assignment they let me go on the road with a new minority recruiter, SD1 Bobby D. Elliott, and we had some good times despite some threats by some rednecks who didn't take kindly to a black man in their restaurants or bars.