Background
Charles Calhoun was born April 20, 1925 in Ocean City, Maryland and lived very close to the coast throughout his childhood.
Charles Calhoun was born April 20, 1925 in Ocean City, Maryland and lived very close to the coast throughout his childhood.
He joined the United States Navy in 1943 at the age of 17 and was trained as a torpedoman. He served on the United States Ship Lunga Point in the Pacific Ocean theater of World World War World War II He participated in many of the bloodiest battles of the theater, including the battles of Leyte Gulf, Luzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. The Lunga Point"s crew received the Navy Unit Commendation for "extraordinary heroism and action against enemy Japanese forces in the air, ashore, and afloat" following a kamikaze attack on the ship.
Calhoun was honorably discharged from the Navy on February 21, 1946.
Coast Guard
He enlisted at the rank of Boatswain’s Mate Second Class due to his Navy experience. His first assignment was to a small station in Ocean City.
There he saved a man who had fallen from a jetty into the water and broken his hip. He would later serve with Coast Guard Squadron One aboard the USCGC Point Orient during the Vietnam War.
The cutter sighted and fought enemies on her first patrol, making the Point Orient the first Coast Guard cutter to fire shots in the Vietnam War.
Calhoun learned of the creation of the new office, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard (MCPOCG), while working as a career counselor Calhoun sent in an application for the job, and centered his application essay on his belief that the office should be used to promote communication between enlisted sailors and their command. He was accepted and was made the first MCPOCG by then-Commandant of the Coast Guard Willard J. Smith on August 27, 1969.
He undertook numerous projects during his tenure in the office, including working on the board that led to the creation of the Cutterman Insignia, implementing a program of local advisors who reported to the MCPOCG office to hear enlisted personnel issues, and beginning the movement towards the Coast Guard wearing their own style of uniform rather than Navy uniforms with a few defining patches and pins.
Calhoun retired from the MCPOCG position on August 1, 1973. He would eventually die in Santa Rosa, California on February 24, 2002.