Watsonville >> It’s a chilly evening in the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica and Petty Officer Jorge Orozco is “standing the watch” aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Waesche.
For four hours, Orozco’s security rounds include checking for any casualties among the 118-member crew, ruptured pipes, fires or flooding that he would report to the engineer and officer of the watch.
Orozco arrived in the U.S. from Mexico with his parents when he was 3 years old in 1991. His parents, who worked in the Watsonville strawberry fields 12 hours a day, seven days a week, had high expectations for their six children.
“They provided us with the security and the opportunity to make a positive contribution to our new home,” Orozco, 29, said. “They wanted us to have professional careers instead of doing back-breaking work.”
A graduate of Aptos High School and Long Beach State where he studied kinesiology, Orozco is a storekeeper third class in charge of procurement, logistics and accounting aboard a 418-foot cutter that has taken him around the world including to Japan, Panama, Guatemala, Peru and Alaska on rescue operations, narcotic interceptions and enforcement of fishery restrictions. Orozco oversees a $700 million budget.
“I always wanted to be part of the military but I didn’t want to be in a position in which I might have to take someone’s life,” Orozco said. “In the U.S. Coast Guard we train so others can live.”
And the preparation is demanding. At an eight-week boot camp in Cape May, N.J., workouts included runs up to 3 miles, a mile swim, treading water for up to 20 minutes, 40 push-ups, 60 sit-ups and lifting heavy ropes repeatedly above the shoulders and head for three to four hours. To improve discipline and focus, some recruits were required to stare at a wall for four to five hours without moving or talking.
“It’s critical to ‘keep eyes on the boat’ and stay focused on the task at all times,” said Orozco who speaks with a deliberate cadence. “You can’t get distracted when attempting to save someone who is drowning or when responding to a crisis aboard a ship.”
A recent assignment took Orozco and the crew through the Bering Sea where they avoided 60- to 70-foot waves for three days circling in the Beaver Inlet, a part of the Aleutian Islands, on a mission to rescue any fishing fleets in harm’s way.
Orozco is taking pre-requisite courses to enter a master’s degree program in occupational therapy, a profession he plans to pursue when he retires from the U.S. Coast Guard in 17 years. “I want to continually move out of my comfort zone, improve my skills and expand my perspective and understanding of other cultures,” he said. “I am doing more than I ever thought possible and I am succeeding.”
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Three to four month deployments each year for the last three years have kept Orozco away from his fiancee, a special education teacher, for longer than he prefers. Fortunately, he will soon be eligible to be stationed for most of his military career in Long Beach, where she lives.
A former wrestler, Orozco is now an amateur photographer who favors capturing the snowy peaks of the Pacific Northwest Mountains.
For now, Orozco has a profound sense of purpose as a member of the U.S. Coast Guard.
“Our presence reassures people in distress that we have their backs,” he said. “And I am always ready for the next adventure.”
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