A big bird is coming to Manahawkin.

No, not Big Bird; he’s rather busy defending the PBS budget in this election season. Rather another big bird, actually a full-bird – Capt. Kathleen Moore, commanding officer of U.S. Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay.

Moore will be appearing at the monthly meeting of U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Division 7 to formally recognize the efforts of the Coast Guard auxiliarists who serve in its six flotillas. The meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2 at the Mill Creek Community Center in Stafford Township.

 Military veterans will appreciate the significance of Moore’s visit because “full-birds” – captains in the Coast Guard and Navy and colonels in the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force – are big brass, whose nickname springs from the fact their insignia of rank is an eagle clutching an olive branch and a bundle of arrows in its talons. Indeed, the average Coastie serving at a small boat station or on all but that service’s largest ships might see a full-bird once every couple of years at an inspection or change-of-command ceremony. A captain visiting an auxiliary unit is a high honor.

Moore will be especially honoring the coxwains and crews of two auxiliary vessels that were involved in bay rescues in the past few months.

One performed two separate assists in Barnegat Bay just south of the Dorland J. Henderson Memorial Bridge on Aug. 25. The intrepid auxiliarists first helped a pair of paddle boarders who were in distress and then assisted a fatigued swimmer who was floundering in the middle of the heavily-traveled Intercoastal Waterway.

The other auxiliarists to be honored will be the coxswain and crew of a vessel that rendered assistance to two capsized sail boaters near the mouth of the Toms River on Oct. 6, as reported in The SandPaper last week.

Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay, with headquarters in Philadelphia, has approximately 570 men and women on active duty and about 195 reservists. Its units include a field office in Atlantic City, six small boat stations, six cutters, two ANTS (aids to navigation teams), the Atlantic Strike Team (the service’s first responders at major oil and hazardous material spills) and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary 5^th District Northern Region.

— Rick Mellerup

rickmellerup@thesandpaper.net