Twenty-Six Years of Service on the High Seas

On Oct. 20, Ralph Howland of Barnegat, a retired Coast Guard chief warrant officer who spent 26 years serving in some of the most brutal ocean conditions imaginable, shared his sea stories at a special graduation ceremony at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May.

Howland, a member of Barnegat’s VFW Post 10092, told his stories to a new class of chief petty officers at the Chiefs Call to Initiation, a traditional rite-of-passage process that is sanctioned by the branch’s highest…