HUGE COCAINE BUST 'EXCITING' FOR CREW

Coast Guard Cutter From S.D. Involved

On a moonless night off Panama, Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class
Keith Madle unfastened the chains and cracked open a cargo container
aboard the darkened freighter Gatun.

Even in the dim light, Madle's eyes grew wide. Hundreds of bales that
looked unmistakably like cocaine lay stacked in front of him.

"It was all the way up to the ceiling," recalled Madle, 26, of
Suquamish, Wash. "You couldn't even see all the way to the back."

Madle and five of his shipmates from the San Diego-based cutter
Hamilton - along with a dozen sailors from the cutter Sherman - had
discovered 19 tons of cocaine. They didn't yet know it, but the haul
March 18 would represent the biggest drug seizure in maritime history.

The bales covered the entire deck of the 330-foot Panamanian-flagged
freighter, Madle said. There was enough to fill two semi-trailer trucks.

"It was exciting. No one had ever seen that much before," said Ensign
Brian Sattler, 22, of Silver Spring, Md., the leader of the Hamilton's
boarding team.

This week, the Coast Guard displayed the cocaine at a news conference
in Alameda, the Sherman's home port. And the crew of the Hamilton, now
back in San Diego for a $2.4 million overhaul, spoke to the media for
the first time.

The 1960s-vintage ship is the Coast Guard's largest, at 378 feet. The
Hamilton's mission includes homeland defense, search-and-rescue, and
drug and immigration enforcement. In spite of its age, the ship and
its crew typically deploy for two three-month missions each year, said
Capt. Jeffrey Lee, 48, a San Diego native.

The Hamilton steered out to sea Dec. 30. Just a few days into the new
year, the crew made its first drug seizure of the year: a loose bale
of marijuana floating in the Pacific.

Though the ship's voyages range from the Arctic Circle to below the
equator, and west to Tahiti, this one focused on stopping smugglers
off the Pacific coast of Central and South America.

On March 17, a C-130 maritime patrol aircraft had spotted the Gatun
and directed the Sherman toward it, according to the newspaper Defense
Daily. The Coast Guard invoked an agreement with Panama that allows it
to board vessels in search of contraband.

"In the course of routine patrolling, we may board any vessel we see,"
Lee said.

Because of the Gatun's size, the Sherman's commander sought the
Hamilton's help. By the time Coast Guardsmen Madle and Sattler climbed
aboard, Sherman crew members had mustered the freighter's 14-man crew
near the bridge and searched the ship for hidden spaces.

Nothing seemed unusual about the Gatun, Madle said, except the captain
and chief engineer couldn't tell them how to open the containers.
Falling back on his own background as a heavy equipment operator,
Madle found some tools and pried them open.

The team searched 12 cargo containers and found cocaine in only the
first two. But the haul totalled more than 38,000 pounds in 765 bales,
with a street value of about $300 million. It broke the Coast Guard's
previous seizure record of 30,000 pounds, set in 2004.

The boarding teams spent all night stacking and counting the
bales.

"Everybody was tired after that. They ended up sleeping on top of the
bales," Madle said. "It was an awfully long night, but it made the
crew feel real good."

The bust proved to be an unexpected birthday gift for the Hamilton's
crew. That day was the 40th anniversary of the ship's commissioning.
Lee, the captain, gave most of the crew the day off, allowing them to
fish and barbecue and sunbathe on deck.

Plenty of critics have derided the government's 40-year war on drugs,
in which the Coast Guard plays a central role. Madle doesn't care. He
said the adrenaline rush he gets every time he climbs over the rail of
a strange ship keeps him going.

"I just love doing these kinds of boardings," he said. "It's one of
the best things I've done in the Coast Guard."

Lee takes pride in the Hamilton's record. Since 2005, it has seized
121,000 pounds of cocaine, worth $1.6 billion. That's more than any
other Coast Guard vessel, and about 17 percent of the agency's total
haul in that time.

The Hamilton sailed home a few weeks after the seizure.

"It was a very exciting time for us," Lee said. "We were on top of the
world."