0300 (three AM), where am I? I am on the starboard side main deck of the medium endurance cutter (ship) I am stationed on. What am I doing? I am frisking every single woman and girl that we bring aboard our vessel. Who are they? They are Haitian Migrants attempting to flee their homeland in search of something better, something livable. Unfortunately, they have not found it. What are we looking at? A 20-foot sail boat, with no sails, no method of propulsion, no life preservers, taking on water in absolute darkness. There are 80 men, women, and children contending with the bleak waters, hoping for freedom. They drift on a floating prison that is quickly sinking. Our crew has been arranged into a human-processing assembly line; we each have a function and we are trying to prevent a bottleneck. This can be a dangerous evolution, especially when the number of people we are saving is about the same number as our entire crew. We are also trying to prevent mass hysteria amongst the migrants; so far no one has ended up in the water and it is our goal to keep it that way. As I am the only female stationed on the cutter, it is my job to frisk all of the females. I am relying on the ten-minute training one of the other junior officers gave me on how to properly frisk an individual, looking for potential weapons and other dangerous substances and objects. I am falling behind. The other crew members pressure me to work faster as the line of females gets longer. It is a difficult balance to maintain, that of doing a thorough frisk and that of preventing a potentially dangerous bottleneck. Though I do not know how it is possible, I finish frisking all of the females. It is now 0600 (six AM) and I have been awake for 24 hours. We have been working on this mission since 2200 (ten PM) the previous night when the vessel was spotted and immediately began preparing the ship for our visitors. The count began at 20 people and ended at 80 – 80 people living on a 20-foot sail boat that is sinking. This thought passes through my mind as I pass through the passageways until I finally reach my stateroom and collapse into my rack (bed). I pop out of bed like a Jack-In-The-Box to the phone ringing, “Hey, it’s OPS (Operations Officer), where are you?” It is 0900 (9 AM). I was in my rack sleeping. Although OPS must know I was sleeping after spending all night out on the main deck, I simply say “In my stateroom sir.” I sound tired even to myself despite affecting the cheeriest voice I can muster. He asks me to go the Fo’c’sle (forward part of the ship toward the bow) so that I can shower the female migrants. This is a perfectly reasonable request, but I can’t help wishing that there was another female Coast Guard member onboard to help with the responsibilities of taking care of the women. That’s a little callous. I realize this as I march my way out to the Fo’c’sle and receive a brief pass-down of the current status and my mission. I take a group of waiting females over to the makeshift shower we constructed using a freshwater hose and some PVC tubing to frame a tarp blowing precariously in the aggressive winds of the coastal waters. I give them a bar of soap, three minutes, and as much privacy as I can. Part of my job is to make sure they don’t try to throw themselves overboard; this will never happen while I am onboard. They plead with me for more time. They say, “Boss please.” My heart breaks and I say, “No.” My head cannot think properly, whether from my exhaustion or guilt I do not know. They speak Haitian Creole and can understand French, but I can’t even formulate the word “sorry” in French for them. My OPS boss is on the radio checking in every 15 minutes. As if constantly asking me if I am done will make it faster to provide a pseudo shower for forty women and girls. I know that is not how the world works but he has yet to figure it out. This is my first encounter with migrants and I desperately hope it will be my last. That will not be the case. Hundreds of migrants will call our cutter home for days, weeks and even months before we repatriate them. We give them itchy wool blankets, two meals a day, make-shift protection from the sun, and armed guards to keep the peace. They live on our flight deck. The sad truth is that for some or possibly all, this temporary sojourn on a Coast Guard Cutter is far better than trying to survive in their home country. My only solace is the knowledge that they were saved from a sinking vessel and likely death, hundreds of nautical miles from shore. There is one question that I ask myself on a loop, “What can I do?” The objective I desire is simple but it is the most difficult to attain–to help them. I answer the needs of our guests as they appear, I spend time speaking to them in broken English, and I try to absorb as much information as I can. I have armed myself with a gear belt and fresh supplies, but I do not know how or if I will use this knowledge that they have armed me with. I realize this is only a fractional piece of the migrant/refugee “issue.” I am one ordinary female on one small boat in one miniscule service in this whole wide world. So, what do I do? My job. I check the manual, check the supplies, and ready the boat to receive more visitors to our Steel Hotel.