Damage Controlman

You are the non-rate on the damage-control bill. Every cutter that floats and every crew that comes home does so because somebody learned the hoses, the plugs, and the patches — and right now your job is to become that somebody.

You came out of TRACEN Cape May after eight weeks and reported to a cutter, a waterways or aids unit, or an icebreaker as a non-rated Coast Guardsman striking for DC. Most of your day is the unglamorous work that makes a ship survivable — cleaning and inspecting firefighting gear, checking the serviceability of portable extinguishers, standing bilge watches, inventorying the damage control locker, and completing the working parties the senior petty officers need filled. You stand a damage control watchstander PQS line under a qualified DC petty officer and you put your name on the ship's fire and flooding bill as a trainee on one of the assigned repair lockers. In the bay you stage SCBA cylinders and recharge stations, you learn the layout of every deck and compartment by walking them with a flashlight during training drills, and you stay after liberty call to finish whatever the DC3 handed you at evening quarters.

• 01Locate, don, and operate a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) to the DC PQS standard — mask seal check, low-air alarm recognition, buddy checks, and emergency egress from a smoke-filled compartment.
• 02Handle and advance a charged 1-1/2" or 2-1/2" fire hose — nozzle patterns, flow control, two-person team movement through a cutter passageway — to NFPA and the ship's fire bill standard.
• 03Apply soft patches, wooden plugs, and shore fittings to a simulated flooding boundary per the DC PQS, including the shoring and patching procedures your repair locker carries.
• 04Identify the four classes of fire (A/B/C/D), match each to the correct extinguishing agent, and operate a portable extinguisher on the correct class — pulling the wrong agent on a class B fire in the engineroom is a career-defining event, not just an exam question.
• 05Read the ship's Damage Control Book (DC book) and battle bill assignments well enough to know your repair locker, your station, and your primary and alternate routes from berthing to that station in the dark.
• 06Conduct basic HAZMAT recognition — GHS labeling, SDS lookup, and the COMDTINST M6240-series hazardous materials handling procedures — because cutters work with fuels, solvents, and refrigerants that become threats the moment a casualty starts.

• —The current Coast Guard Damage Control Handbook — the doctrinal source for repair-locker operations, firefighting, flooding response, and HAZMAT aboard cutters. Verify the current COMDTINST pub number against the Directives System before citing by number.
• —NFPA 1 (Fire Code) and NFPA 11 / NFPA 15 / NFPA 17A (shipboard fixed suppression systems) — the NFPA standard framework the Coast Guard maps firefighting qualifications against. Your DC A-school instructors at TRACEN Yorktown quote these.
• —COMDTINST M1000-series — Coast Guard Personnel Manual (the umbrella for leave, liberty, advancement, and conduct on you as a member).
• —COMDTINST M1020.8 (current revision) — Coast Guard Weight and Body Fat Standards.
• —The DC Rating Performance Qualification Standard (PQS) — the qual book that takes you from non-rate to DC3, signature by signature. Read it the first week; every line in it is a drill the petty officers will run you on.
• —Unit Damage Control Book (DC book), ship's Fire and Flooding Bills, and the Vessel Safety Check (VSC) procedures — the living documents that tell you where to be, what to bring, and what boundary you own when the alarm sounds.

• —Damage control watchstander qualification signed on at least one repair locker before A-school designation. Units that get you into firefighting scenarios want the qual underway, not just the book signed.
• —Coast Guard PFT passed every cycle per current personnel manual standards — the rating involves full SCBA gear, hose advancement under pressure, and rapid movement through smoke-filled spaces. You will not make it through the drill if you cannot make it through the run.
• —A-school selection / designation to DC and a class date at TRACEN Yorktown, VA. The DC A-school pipeline (verify current course length against the Institute catalog) is competitive; your EER as a non-rate, your PQS progress, and the OIC's endorsement decide whether you get the seat.
• —A clean locker, clean gear, and a clean inspection record. The DC1 or DCC will remember the seaman who showed up to morning quarters with a cracked SCBA facepiece they had not reported.
• —Volunteer drill hours stacked — the DC3s and DC2s notice the seaman who is in the damage control locker inventorying gear and running drills when the duty section is short a body.

• —Failing a SCBA mask seal check before entering a space with smoke or unknown atmosphere. The mask that leaks in the drill leaks in the fire — and the fire does not wait while you reseat the seal.
• —Leaving a portable extinguisher out of hydrostatic test date or with a broken tamper seal unreported. The DC1 who finds it during a pre-drill inventory has your name on the discrepancy log before the drill starts.
• —Mixing up HAZMAT storage — incompatible chemicals in the same locker, unlabeled containers, SDS binders not current. A COMDTINST M6240-series violation on a cutter is an EPA and Coast Guard Investigations finding in the same report.
• —Not knowing your battle bill station and your route to it from every space you regularly occupy. The alarm sounds; you have about ninety seconds before the passageways are committed. Not knowing the route is the kind of mistake that ends up in a post-casualty investigation.
• —Treating a drill debrief as a check-the-box event. The lessons in the debrief are the lessons that decide who lives when the casualty is real — the seaman who listens and writes them down is the one the DC2 puts in the lead position on the next drill.

The good DC striker is the non-rate the DC2 takes to the hardest drill because the kid dons the SCBA clean, reads the repair locker bill without prompting, and asks the right questions in the debrief instead of the wrong ones during the fire. By the time the A-school designation comes through, his PQS book is signed deep, his gear is inspection-ready, and the OIC is writing the endorsement letter that gets him the Yorktown class date.

You are a Petty Officer in the rating that stands between a crew and the sea. The crow on your sleeve says you can find a fire, fight it, and stop a flood — and a non-rate is watching you do it.

You came back from TRACEN Yorktown with the DC rating badge sewn on and reported to a cutter, a tender, or an icebreaker as a working DC3. You own the damage control watchstander qualification cold and you are working through the Damage Control Petty Officer (DCPO) qual and the repair-locker-specific maintenance responsibilities the DC1 or DCC has assigned you. In garrison you maintain the ship's fire suppression systems — CO2 flooding systems, AFFF systems, sprinkler headers, dry-chemical units — per the manufacturer's service manual and the ship's PMS schedule; you service portable extinguishers, hydrostatic-test cylinders, and maintain the SCBA recharge station. You run the non-rates in the damage-control locker on their PQS lines, you stand repair-locker leader training watches under the DC2, and you write the first round of training records on the seamen assigned to your repair locker.

• 01Lead a repair locker team as repair-locker leader in training — man-up, bill assignments, tool accountability, hose deployment, flooding boundary checks, and debrief to the DC2 standard without prompting.
• 02Perform scheduled PMS on the ship's installed firefighting systems — AFFF system maintenance, CO2 bottle hydrostatic test intervals, sprinkler head inspections, detection circuit checks — and log the work accurately in the ship's maintenance system.
• 03Inspect, service, and recharge SCBA cylinders to the manufacturer's manual and the unit's PMS card; identify a cylinder that fails hydrostatic test or internal inspection and remove it from service before it goes on a person's back.
• 04Conduct a compartment search in SCBA under simulated smoke conditions with a hoseline partner — communications check, buddy check, left-hand / right-hand search pattern, victim drag, emergency egress with a simulated SCBA low-air alarm.
• 05Recognize and report HAZMAT spills or releases using GHS/SDS procedures, contain the spill to the correct DOT/COMDTINST M6240-series standard, and brief the Damage Control Assistant on the material, quantity, and boundary.
• 06Train the non-rates below you on PQS items the DC2 wants signed. Your signature on a seaman's qual sheet is the first time your name is on the audit trail — and the DC2 will check the work.

• —The current Coast Guard Damage Control Handbook — chapters covering your ship's installed systems (AFFF, CO2, sprinkler, dry chemical) and the repair-locker operations standard.
• —COMDTINST M9000.6 (current series) — Coast Guard Marine Safety Manual / Hull Inspection guidelines. The hull inspection program is where the DC rating's PMS work connects to formal regulatory compliance, and the marine inspectors use the same reference.
• —NFPA 10 (Portable Fire Extinguishers) and NFPA 12 (CO2 Extinguishing Systems) — the maintenance standards the unit's extinguisher and fixed-suppression PMS cards derive from. Your A-school instructors introduced these; the DC2 will test your knowledge of the service intervals.
• —COMDTINST M1000-series — Personnel Manual sections on advancement, the Servicewide Exam, and your responsibilities to the non-rates below you.
• —Coast Guard Rating Knowledge for DC (the rating-specific bibliography for the Servicewide Exam) — pull the current list from the Coast Guard Institute; DC2 SWE eligibility starts forming at this paygrade.
• —Ship's Damage Control Book and the unit's Damage Control PMS manual — the living, ship-specific reference that governs every PMS card, every system test, and every repair-locker drill schedule.

• —Damage Control Petty Officer (DCPO) qualification signed on your repair locker; repair-locker leader signature underway before the DC2 SWE cycle.
• —Coast Guard PFT passed every cycle; weight and body composition compliant with the current COMDTINST M1020.8. Wearing SCBA and advancing a charged hose through a smoke-filled passageway is not a metaphor — the fitness standard is there because the job is physically brutal.
• —Servicewide Exam preparation in motion — bibliography pulled, study schedule built, rate training manual chapters underway. The March / August SWE is the gate to DC2 and it does not wait.
• —EER blocks clean and trending up — your first EER as a DC3 sets the trajectory every future rating board will read.
• —At least one C-school slot earned or pending — Firefighting School (Ship), HAZMAT Technician, Damage Control Advanced, or a platform-specific course relevant to your ship's suppression systems.

• —Putting a SCBA cylinder back in service after a failed mask seal check or a failed hydrostatic test date because "there's no replacement ready." A failed SCBA in an IDLH atmosphere is a Coast Guard fatality waiting for a date — report it and pull it, every time.
• —Logging a PMS job as complete in the ship's maintenance system when the work was deferred or the as-found condition was off-spec. The marine inspector and the District engineering staff read the maintenance log, and "complete" means complete.
• —Advancing the wrong suppression agent on a class of fire that the agent makes worse — CO2 on a class D fire, water on an energized electrical panel. A-school tested you on this; the casualty will test you for real.
• —Skipping the SWE study cycle. The exam is twice a year, the bibliography is not short, and the DC petty officers who skip cycles are the ones still DC3 when the people they outranked in A-school are pinning DC1.
• —Posting OPSEC-relevant photos — ship's damage control system layouts, AFFF tank capacities, flooding boundary maps, or casualty-exercise after-action materials on social media. The S2 and the Sector intel shop have seen what adversaries do with that information.

The good DC3 is the petty officer the DC2 puts in the repair-locker leader slot on a no-notice drill because the kid mans up the locker, accounts for every tool and breathing apparatus, and debriefs the non-rates without waiting to be told. His PMS log reads clean, his SCBA cylinders are in hydrostatic-test date, his SWE study plan is on the bulkhead, and his name is on the next C-school appointment letter before the next advancement cycle drops.

You are a qualified Damage Control Petty Officer. The repair locker is yours under the DC1's authority — the survivability of the crew on a real casualty runs through your hands, your training plan, and your maintenance log.

You are usually the junior qualified DCPO at a medium cutter or the senior watchstander on a smaller cutter's or tender's damage control bill. You own a repair locker — you maintain its inventory, you train the DC3s and non-rates assigned to it, and you run the locker-level drills the DC1 plans and the DCC approves. You are the unit's SCBA recharge station custodian, you manage the PMS schedule for your assigned firefighting systems end-to-end, and you write the first round of EER inputs on the DC3s and non-rates under you. The HAZMAT program has grown: you may be the ship's HAZMAT Coordinator or the assistant to the Damage Control Assistant on HAZMAT planning, COMDTINST M6240-series compliance, and the unit's hazardous material inventory. On icebreakers, buoy tenders, and cutters with industrial deck equipment, the damage-control and HAZMAT work is heavier than on a patrol boat — plan for that in your qualification slate.

• 01Lead a full repair-locker response as DCPO — man-up, bill assignments, tool accountability, primary and secondary hose deployment, flooding boundary isolation, smoke watch, post-casualty debrief — without the DC1 redirecting you mid-drill.
• 02Run SCBA qualification evolutions for DC3s and non-rates: mask seal checks, buddy checks, confidence course, emergency egress, victim drag, low-air alarm procedures. Your signature on their qual sheet is the unit's defense against a preventable SCBA fatality.
• 03Conduct compartment-integrity surveys and watertight-boundary checks per the ship's Damage Control Book — noting dogs, hinges, gaskets, drain plugs, and seachests that are not to standard and putting the discrepancy in writing before the next underway.
• 04Manage the ship's HAZMAT inventory per the COMDTINST M6240-series — SDS binder current, incompatible materials segregated, quantities within authorized limits, spill kits staged at the right locations.
• 05Write clean watch-stander EER inputs on the DC3s and non-rates under you — observable behavior, measurable improvement, no inflation — because the DC1 and the DCC are reading how you describe the people you are responsible for.
• 06Conduct training to the Damage Control Assistant's plan — repair-locker drills, SCBA refreshers, hose-team proficiency, boundary-check exercises, and the recurring qual sustainment that keeps the ship's bill fully manned.

• —The current Coast Guard Damage Control Handbook — chapters on DCPO responsibilities, repair-locker management, SCBA program, and the casualty control procedures your locker owns.
• —COMDTINST M9000.6 (current series) — Coast Guard Marine Safety Manual / Hull Inspection. This is the regulatory framework the unit's hull inspector uses and the frame the DCPO's PMS work has to survive.
• —NFPA 10 (Portable Fire Extinguishers), NFPA 12 (CO2 Systems), NFPA 11 (AFFF Systems), and NFPA 72 (Fire Alarm and Signaling Code) — the standard-setting documents the ship's suppression systems are maintained against. Know your systems; know which NFPA standard governs them.
• —COMDTINST M6240-series — Coast Guard Hazardous Materials Management and the unit-level HAZMAT program. If you are the ship's HAZMAT coordinator, you own this document.
• —COMDTINST M1000-series — Personnel Manual sections on advancement, EER, and the Servicewide Exam process for DC1.
• —CIM 1610-series — Enlisted Employee Review (EER). You write inputs now; understand how the EER mark and the chief's narrative drive the SWE final multiple.

• —Repair-Locker Leader qualification signed on the ship's primary repair locker; DCPO qualification on at least one assigned repair locker and working toward a second.
• —HAZMAT Coordinator or HAZMAT Technician qualification on the slate — icebreakers, tenders, and buoy tenders with industrial hazardous cargos require it before you can fully own the locker.
• —EER marks at or near the unit average — your inputs from the DC1 and DCC are the variable, and the rating writes EERs that mean something.
• —Servicewide Exam taken on cycle (March or August), with a bibliography-driven study plan. Pull the current ALCGENL / CGPSC promotion message for the DC SWE cutoff.
• —PFT passed; body composition compliant with current COMDTINST M1020.8; no civil convictions, no Article 15 / NJP equivalent — the rating is small and the DCC slate sees everything.

• —Letting the repair-locker inventory go unverified between drills because "we just did a drill last month." The loose link that should have been replaced last month is the loose link that strips the hose connection when a fire is running. Inventory after every drill, every time.
• —Signing off a watertight boundary as "satisfactory" during a survey without actually checking the gasket condition and the dog torque. The next flooding casualty finds the boundary you listed as watertight and it is not — and the post-casualty investigation reads your survey date.
• —Verbal counselings on DC3s and non-rates instead of EER inputs and Page 7s. The chiefs need it on paper before the DCC slate looks at the next promotion file.
• —Skipping HAZMAT SDS updates when the ship's stores change. A chemical that enters the ship without a current SDS in the binder is a COMDTINST M6240-series violation and an EPA finding waiting for a port call.
• —Coasting on SCBA recharge station maintenance. SCBA cylinders have hydrostatic test intervals, cascade-system pressure requirements, and compressor filter-change schedules — a cylinder that fails on a person in an IDLH space is a fatality and your name is on the recharge log.

The good DC2 is the petty officer the Damage Control Assistant sends to the repair locker when the drill is unannounced and the stakes are high — because the locker mans up full, the SCBA accountability is clean, and the debrief she hears afterwards matches what actually happened in the space. His EER inputs name behavior the DCC can defend, his SWE study calendar is on the bulkhead, and the DCC is already talking about which C-schools will set him up for the DC1 cutoff.

You are the senior working DC. The DCC and the Damage Control Assistant sign the plans; you run the lockers, the petty officers who man them, and the maintenance program that decides whether the ship lives through its worst day.

You are typically the senior DC at a medium or large cutter — 210-foot Reliance-class WMEC, 270-foot Famous-class WMEC, 378-foot Hamilton-class WHEC, a Bertholf-class WMSL, or an icebreaker like Polar Star or Healy — running the ship's damage control program below the DCC and the Damage Control Assistant (usually a Warrant Officer or Engineering Officer). You sign DCPO qualification recommendations to the DCA, you own the ship's damage control PMS schedule across the entire suite of installed systems, and you write the bulk of the EER program for the DC2s and DC3s below you. You brief the DCA on PMS compliance, system discrepancies, and repair-locker readiness ahead of every underway. You are the unit's SCBA program manager and the senior voice on HAZMAT compliance. You also start running the chief board prep: EER profile, awards stack, leadership C-school (LAMP / LEAD / equivalent), correspondence courses, and the chief's mess sponsorship conversation that decides whether your DCC packet is competitive.

• 01Run the ship's damage control qualification program as the senior DC — repair-locker leader boards, DCPO qualification appointments, SCBA proficiency sign-offs, and the signed recommendation to the DCA. The board's integrity is your name.
• 02Own the full damage-control PMS schedule — AFFF system tests, CO2 bank weights, sprinkler head inspections, detection circuit tests, SCBA hydrostatic dates, portable extinguisher service, hose pressure tests — and keep the DCA's readiness brief honest.
• 03Conduct advanced repair-locker evolutions as the senior watchstander — combined fire and flooding casualty, mass-casualty secondary hazard, SCBA out-of-air rescue, electrical casualty in a machinery space — and debrief them to the standard the Sector or District inspector will apply.
• 04Lead the ship's HAZMAT program — COMDTINST M6240-series compliance, SDS currency, incompatible materials segregation, HAZWOPER training records for qualified personnel, and the unit's spill response plan.
• 05Mentor two to three DC2s into DC1-SWE-ready candidates: study plans, EER blocks, awards packages, C-school slate, and the chief's mess sponsorship conversation.
• 06Sit in the DCA's standing orders review and push back honestly when a maintenance or operational posture will leave the ship's damage control systems in a condition the handbook does not support — the DC1 voice is the last working-level filter before the casualty.

• —The current Coast Guard Damage Control Handbook — every chapter relevant to the ship's platform; if you are the PMS program lead, you own this pub the way a master engineer owns the manufacturer's manual.
• —COMDTINST M9000.6 (current series) — Coast Guard Marine Safety Manual / Hull Inspection. The marine inspector uses this reference; you need to know it before the marine inspector walks aboard.
• —NFPA 10, NFPA 11, NFPA 12, NFPA 15, NFPA 17A, NFPA 72, and NFPA 750 — the NFPA suppression and detection standards for the full suite of systems on a medium or large cutter. Know which standard governs which system on your ship.
• —IMO STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) — the international framework for firefighting and safety training that the Coast Guard maps its larger-cutter proficiency standards to. Icebreakers and major cutters operating internationally use this vocabulary.
• —CIM 1610-series — Enlisted Employee Review (EER). You write the bulk of the inputs and you read the DCC's draft of your own.
• —COMDTINST M1000-series — Personnel Manual sections on advancement, the Service-Wide Personnel Board process for E-7 selection, and your responsibilities to the DC2s below you.

• —DCPO qualification on all primary repair lockers; SCBA Program Manager designation under the DCA; HAZMAT Coordinator or HAZMAT Technician qualification complete.
• —DC1 EER profile at the top of the unit's DC1 cohort. The chief board reads the EER trend across multiple commands, not just the latest period.
• —Service-Wide Personnel Board / DCC selection competitive — pull the current CGPSC ALCGENL for the DCC slate cycle and ride the most recent slate composition for your study and awards plan.
• —Permanent Cutterman device earned (if you have the qualifying sea time on cutters >65 feet); awards profile (Achievement, Commendation, Letter of Commendation) consistent with casualty response, PMS program leadership, and EER record.
• —Leadership C-school (PETTY OFFICER LEADERSHIP COURSE equivalent) either complete or on the slate. The DCC board is composed of records, and the leadership block is one of them.

• —Signing a DCPO qualification recommendation because the petty officer is your friend rather than because he can run the locker. The first time he leads a repair locker into a real casualty without the skill to hold it, the DCA reads the appointment letter back to you and the DCC.
• —Letting the ship's suppression system PMS drift — a skipped AFFF foam-concentration test, an overdue CO2 bottle weight check, a detector head that has been on the discrepancy list for two underways. The District inspector reads the maintenance log and the DCA is the one who answers.
• —Coasting on HAZMAT compliance because "the ship's stores haven't changed in six months." COMDTINST M6240-series audits are not announced on your schedule — the EPA inspector doesn't call ahead either.
• —Confusing being "tight" with the DCA with being aligned with the DCA. The unit needs you to push back in the office on a bad maintenance call or a deferred system test, in private, before the ship is underway with a compromised system.
• —Skipping the leadership C-school because "the slot is next year." The DCC slate is composed of records, and the leadership block on the record is one they check before the nominations go to the Sector.

The good DC1 is the senior petty officer the DCA trusts with the unannounced ready-cutter inspection and the post-casualty readiness report both — because his PMS log is current, his qualification appointments were earned, and his debrief after a combined fire-and-flooding drill tells the DCA exactly what failed and exactly what was fixed before the next underway. His DC2s pin DC1, his DC3s pin DC2, and the unit's damage control posture survives a District audit cold. By the time he sits the DCC board his record reads as a damage control leader, not just a watchstander, and the chiefs in the Mess are sponsoring him.

You are an anchor. The Chiefs Mess is a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and the rest of the ship reads the damage control climate by what you tolerate at the repair locker and what you do not.

You are typically the Damage Control Chief on a 270-foot or 378-foot WMEC, a Bertholf-class WMSL, or an icebreaker — the senior enlisted DC voice and the chief the Damage Control Assistant leans on for every program call. On smaller platforms you may be the DCPO acting in a senior chief role or the senior chief at a training command detachment or Marine Safety Unit. You went to the Chief Petty Officer Academy (CPOA) at TRACEN Petaluma, CA when your initiation cycle pinned you, and the job changed more between DC1 and DCC than at any other rank — you are now responsible for the ship's damage control climate and program integrity, not just the work in front of you. You write EERs on the DC1s and second-class petty officers below you, you advise the DCA (and often the Chief Engineer and XO) on every decision that affects damage control readiness, and you sit in the Sector chief network and the District DC community — small enough that every DCC at your paygrade knows your name and your ship's last inspection score.

• 01Run the ship's damage control program as the senior DC — qualification boards, PMS compliance, SCBA program, HAZMAT program, repair-locker readiness, and the relation between your program and the ship's hull inspection schedule under COMDTINST M9000.6.
• 02Brief the XO, Chief Engineer, and Damage Control Assistant on the ship's damage control posture — system discrepancies, qualification gaps, deferred maintenance, upcoming inspection exposure — and make the bad news land before the District inspector makes it land worse.
• 03Mentor three to four DC1s into DCC-board-competitive candidates — EER trajectory, awards profile, leadership C-school, family stability, and the chief's mess sponsorship conversation.
• 04Run a combined fire-and-flooding casualty drill as the senior DC on scene — repair-locker coordination, DCA interface, smoke watch, engineering boundary control, SCBA accountability, debrief — and produce an after-action that the Sector or District inspector would be comfortable reading.
• 05Sit in the Chiefs Mess on the unit's discipline cases, climate sensing reports, and Sector EO / harassment-prevention posture and translate those into actions the DCA, XO, and CO will fund and the crew will execute.
• 06Walk the hull and the damage-control spaces with the marine inspector during a COMDTINST M9000.6 inspection and identify the discrepancy before the inspector does — the DCC who finds it first and has the corrective action queued is the DCC the ship's CO trusts with the next deployment.

• —COMDTINST M1000-series — Personnel Manual (you and the DCA own this together for the crew).
• —The current Coast Guard Damage Control Handbook — you are the senior authority in the ship on what the handbook says and what the standing orders can reasonably extend.
• —COMDTINST M9000.6 (current series) — Coast Guard Marine Safety Manual / Hull Inspection. You walk the ship with the inspector; you need to know this document better than he does.
• —CIM 1610-series — Enlisted Employee Review (EER) and the EER writing guide. Your bullets pick the next DC slate.
• —COMDTINST M5350-series and the equivalent CG civil rights / harassment-prevention publications — you sit in the unit's climate posture as a senior enlisted member.
• —The Chief Petty Officer Academy and Senior Enlisted Leadership Course reading lists from TRACEN Petaluma, CA — your continuing professional development as a senior enlisted leader.

• —Chief Petty Officer Academy (CPOA) at TRACEN Petaluma, CA completed; Senior Enlisted Leadership Course (SELC) on the calendar if you are competitive for senior chief.
• —Permanent Cutterman device earned for qualifying sea time on cutters >65 feet; the rating recognizes sea time heavily given its afloat nature.
• —Unit EER profile clean — the DCs at the second-class and first-class level under you are advancing on schedule, and your bullets read consistent with what the District and Sector know about the ship.
• —Ship's damage control readiness posture clean — zero preventable Class A mishaps during a damage-control evolution in your tenure; documented corrective action on any Class B or C event; hull inspection score at or above the cutter's historical baseline.
• —Zero senior-enlisted integrity incidents — financial, fraternization, OPSEC, HAZMAT records discipline. The rating is small and one event ends the career.

• —Letting the ship's damage control program drift to match an operational tempo that does not leave room for mandatory PMS. The Damage Control Handbook and the COMDTINST M9000.6 hull inspection schedule are the envelope; the District inspector does not sign the mishap board.
• —Going public with disagreement with the DCA, the XO, or the District chief. You take it in the office; you walk out aligned, and the crew reads alignment from a DCC.
• —Stopping your personal PT and your time on the deckplate because "I'm a chief now." The repair locker respects the anchor only as long as the chief can still don SCBA and lead the drill, not just supervise it.
• —Inflating EER blocks on a favored DC1. The senior chiefs in the Mess and the District DC chief network see the inflation across multiple cycles, and the slate discounts your bullets next time.
• —Skipping the Chiefs Mess work — the climate sensing, the discipline reviews, the new-arrival sponsorship — because the inspection schedule is heavy. The Mess is the job at this paygrade; treating it as overhead is how a DCC becomes a non-selectee for DCCS.

The good DCC is the chief the Sector or District calls when a cutter's damage control program is failing a hull inspection — because the answer is usually a senior DC. His DC1s pin DCC, his DC2s pin DC1, and the ship's suppression systems, SCBA program, and repair lockers survive a COMDTINST M9000.6 hull inspection cold. The DCA briefs the XO from the DCC's summary, not the other way around. When he leaves the ship, the standard stays for at least another deployment — the only measure of the anchor pin that matters.

You are the standard for the rating. Every DCC in the service knows your name; every junior DC is reading your career to understand what the work means — and the hulls your ships floated through their worst days are the evidence you leave behind.

As DCCS you are typically the senior DC on a National Security Cutter (Bertholf-class WMSL), the senior DC or lead training specialist at a Major Systems Command, a TRACEN Yorktown DC A-school or C-school cadre member, a District or Area DC program advisor, or the senior damage control enlisted advisor at the Engineering Logistics Center (ELC) in Baltimore. As DCCM you are on the Command Master Chief track — at a Sector, a District, a major cutter under an O-6 CO, TRACEN Petaluma or Yorktown, Atlantic or Pacific Area HQ, or Coast Guard headquarters — and your name is on the slate the Service reads at the senior-enlisted council. You set the standard for the DC rating's PMS discipline, qualification integrity, and HAZMAT program compliance by what you enforce at the ships and units you touch. You sit in the DCCM / senior DC network, the Senior Enlisted Council, and the slate-board prep that picks the next DCCS / DCCM cohort. You are also actively planning the post-Coast Guard market — because the DC rating translates well into federal and civilian fire protection, emergency management, maritime safety (ABS / Lloyd's / DNV marine survey, port security), FEMA and DHS emergency response management, and the industrial safety sector.

• 01Run or advise on the damage control readiness, hull inspection, and HAZMAT program for a major cutter or district-level portfolio — hulls, programs, personnel, training pipeline, inspection exposure, and the boundary between what the operational commander needs and what the COMDTINST M9000.6 envelope actually permits.
• 02Mentor four to six DCCs into DCCS-board-competitive candidates — EER trajectory, awards, command sponsorship, broadening assignments (TRACEN cadre, District staff, ELC Baltimore, recruiter, Coast Guard Academy DC instructor), and family stability.
• 03Sit on a DC rating slate or community manager board (per CGPSC tasking) and translate community-level needs — distribution gaps, retention shortfalls, C-school throughput, NSC and OPC manning ramps — into slate decisions the rating lives with for three years.
• 04Brief the Sector commander, District commander, or cutter CO on damage control readiness, HAZMAT posture, hull inspection trends, and the things they cannot see from the bridge or the conference room — the PMS deferred across three patrols, the AFFF foam concentration that has been marginal since the last refit, the qualified DCPO shortage that will surface at the next hull inspection.
• 05Walk the deck of a cutter or shore unit during a major damage-control casualty, mishap investigation, or hull inspection failure and identify the broken system before the investigating officer does — the drifted qualification standard, the deferred PMS job, the SCBA that should have been removed from service two months ago.
• 06Engage the post-service market for yourself and your senior DCs honestly — maritime safety surveying (ABS / Lloyd's / DNV), FEMA and DHS emergency management GS pipelines, port and facility security, industrial fire protection — because the rating's skills are genuinely valuable and the transition plans early.

• —COMDTINST M1000-series — Personnel Manual (you sign as the senior enlisted on its compliance posture at your command).
• —COMDTINST M9000.6 (current series) — Coast Guard Marine Safety Manual / Hull Inspection. You are the rating's walking authority on this document at your command and in any advisory role.
• —The current Coast Guard Damage Control Handbook — you are the rating's senior-enlisted institutional voice on what the handbook says and what the fleet is actually executing.
• —CIM 1610-series — Enlisted Employee Review (EER). Your bullets pick the next DCC and DCCS slate at the command.
• —CGPSC ALCGENL and ALSPO messages — pull the current slate composition and community-manager guidance; the DC rating community is small enough that the messages name the slate.
• —The Senior Enlisted Leadership Course (SELC) reading list and the master chief / command master chief community professional development curriculum from TRACEN Petaluma, CA.

• —Senior Enlisted Leadership Course (SELC) graduate; Command Master Chief or senior DC program advisor at a major cutter, Sector, or District — the visible track for the rating's most senior seats.
• —Permanent Cutterman device on the uniform for qualifying sea time on cutters >65 feet; the afloat nature of the rating means sea time is the credential the community reads.
• —Command EER profile clean; the DCCs and DC1s under you are pinning on schedule and your bullets are consistent across multiple periods.
• —Command hull inspection and damage control readiness record — COMDTINST M9000.6 inspection scores at or above the fleet average across your tenure; documented corrective action when a deficiency surfaces.
• —Zero senior-enlisted integrity incidents — financial, fraternization, OPSEC, HAZMAT records. At this paygrade the record is the only thing the slate sees, and the rating is small enough that the record is visible to the whole community.

• —Going public with disagreement with the operational commander or the District / Area chief. Take it in the office. Walk out aligned. The rating reads the DCCM's public posture and replicates it — if the standard is "alignment until it's wrong," the whole community drifts that way.
• —Confusing seniority with current technical depth. A DCCS who cannot walk a hull inspection or brief a COMDTINST M9000.6 compliance posture to the District inspector without reading from notes is a DCCS the DCCs below him cannot learn from.
• —Letting a DCC run a bad program at a subordinate unit because "he's got it under control." The District commander hears about it the first time a hull inspection fails or a HAZMAT violation surfaces, and the senior enlisted who tolerated it is named in the investigation.
• —Treating the warm-up to retirement as if the job is over. Until you walk out of formation for the last time, the rating is still your job — and the community reads what you tolerated in your last two years more than what you built in your first twenty.
• —Waiting until ETS minus twelve months to plan the post-service transition. The maritime safety, emergency management, and fire protection markets reward the senior DC who shows up prepared — not the one who shows up at a job fair with a DD-214 and a vague idea.

The good DCCS or DCCM is the senior enlisted whose name the District commander drops when a cutter's damage control program needs to be rebuilt, because his community knows he does not inflate what he cannot defend and he does not sign what has not been earned. His DCCs pin DCCS; his DCCS pin DCCM. The hulls that served under his program survive their hull inspections clean and come home from their worst-weather patrols intact. When he retires, the ABS and DNV survey offices and the DHS emergency management GS pipeline already have his number — and the rating remembers the standard he left behind, which is the only measure the anchor pin was ever meant by.