In a reminder that high-tech militaries are only as strong as their weakest supporting link, a long-standing cook shortage threatens to sideline the U.S. Coast Guard.
Newly recruited to the high-tech, great-power struggle in the Western Pacific, the Coast Guard is in a struggle for trained workers. But rather than focus solely on waging a bare-knuckle labor fight to keep elite operations specialists, electronics technicians, cyber operators, and other glamorous workers in the fleet, the Coast Guard is also paying big money to recruit and retain cooks, or, in Coast Guard vernacular, “culinary specialists.”
Recognizing the old military adage that “an army travels on its stomach,” the Coast Guard is pushing hard to fill the gap. An enlisted recruit with a culinary degree can get a $50,000 bonus, jumping the recruit and apprentice ratings to enter the Coast Guard as a full-fledged Third-Class Petty Officer. A culinary certificate holder gets $45,000. An untrained Coast Guard recruit with an interest in tending a kitchen can go to culinary school, and, upon completion, get a $40,000 reward.