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HOWLAND -- Bill Robinson said he remembers when his great uncle told him to join the Coast Guard because "those guys have the life."
Robinson, 61, served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1989 to 2021, which he says is "32 years, nine months and 28 days," or over half his life.
Robinson joined the Coast Guard in February 1989 at the age of 27. His time in the Coast Guard took him all over the United States and other parts of the world.
His father, Willard Robinson Jr. of Burghill, served in the Army as a paratrooper.
"Back then when I was growing up I knew someday I would be in the military. I always thought the Army. I never saw the sense of jumping out of an airplane so I looked at the Navy. My great uncle, who was my grandmother's brother, was in the Navy during World War II. He told me when I was in my teens that if I joined any branch of the military I should join the Coast Guard. He told me 'Those guys have the life,'" Robinson said.
He said what the Coast Guard does intrigued him. In 1975, the Edmond Fitzgerald sank and he decided the Coast Guard would be the branch to join.
"The Coast Guard is not easy to get into. There was a waiting list in Cleveland to get into the Coast Guard. I left in February 1989 and went to Camp May in New Jersey for eight weeks of basic training. I got the basics of all the Coast Guard does," Robinson said.
He received training in seamanship, firefighting, small boat navigation and shooting.
Robinson's first assignment was at Fairport Harbor near Painesville in the reserve unit assigned to Port Clinton then to the marine safety office in Pittsburgh.
He said because the Coast Guard is part of Homeland Security, it has more peacetime missions than the Navy, which is more national defense. He said the Coast Guard handles small boat, maritime law enforcement, boating safety, and search and rescue,
Robinson spent time in many rivers building light towers and putting buoys in the river as navigational aides. Those rivers included the Mississippi River and Allegheny River.
He said after Sept. 11, 2001, he was sent for nine months to New Orleans, Louisiana, working the marine safety office as a sea marshal.
"I was riding ships up and down the Mississippi River including hazardous chemical tankers," he said.
He was recalled to active duty in March 2003 in Corpus Christy, Texas, for military outload operations as they were preparing for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Robinson said they acted as port security as items were being loaded onto ships.
In 2012, Robinson left the country for the first time, heading to Kuwait and the Middle East providing protection to the ships.
"At the Kuwait Naval Base where we were, the only ships that came in there were ammunition ships. This was near Kuwait's largest industrial port where there were refineries and factories. We protected the tankers that came in and loaded oil. We protected the base from any foreign war ships," Robinson said.
He said the Coast Guard port security unit had to be ready to leave for anywhere in the world within 96 hours. Robinson said the Coast Guard has been in the Middle East since Desert Storm.
In 2015, Robinson and others in the unit went to South Korea for port security. In 2017 and 2018, he went to the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, providing waterside security.
In 2020, Robinson went to Buffalo, New York as command enlisted adviser through early 2021.
In early 2021, he helped the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Minnesota at a COVID-19 vaccination site at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. He then went to McGowan, Texas for border patrol operations for a month.
"I turned 60 in November and retired. I served a long time in the Coast Guard," he said.
"I thank the public for their support of us. I would not have been able to go to so many different places and do so many things without the support of the American taxpayers. I loved going to all those places and doing the missions. The government paid me to do that. I would have done it for free," he said.
Bill Robinson
AGE: 61
HOMETOWN: Howland
SERVICE BRANCH: U.S. Coast Guard
MEDALS: Coast Guard Commendation Medal, Coast Guard Achievement Medal, Army Achievement Medal and Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal
EMPLOYMENT: Cantar, Toys R Us, truck driver owner / operator
FAMILY: Wife, Danielle; two children