Showing off the guard

As crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Narwhal motored out of Newport Harbor with kids from a local school earlier this year, one of the kids pointed to a crew member and said, “I’m going to be your boss one day,” the crewmen remembered with a laugh.

In the more than 230 hours the Narwhal crew dedicated to educating children in 2008, crewmen said plenty of funny moments like that occurred.

“It’s just like watching Bill Cosby’s, ‘Kid’s Say the Darndest Things,’” said 2nd Class Petty Officer Justin Picket.

Thursday afternoon, the dozen Narwhal crew members were awarded the Commandant’s Partnership in Education award for 2008, beating out every other unit in the country except for a group in New Jersey, who shared the award.

Over the last year the crew has dedicated hundreds of hours to showing kids from second grade through high school what their local Coast Guard Cutter crew does.

“We’re the only Coast Guard station in Orange County. What we do so often is off-shore. Basically we’re trying to show this community that we’re a part of the community,” said Lt. Kristopher Ensley, the Narwhal’s commanding officer.

All it takes to arrange a visit with the local Cutter crew is a phone call, crew members said. It’s just a matter of scheduling, because periodically they’re sent to patrol hundreds of miles away, officials said. In November, the Narwhal crew chased drug smugglers out of international waters and netted 137 bales of marijuana in the pursuit.

Capt. Paul Wiedenhoeft, commander of the Los Angeles/Long Beach Coast Guard sector that includes Newport Harbor, also stopped by to congratulate the crew.

“The work you guys have done around here” is impressive, he said. “But more importantly, there’s the influence you’ve had on the lives of those students and made them see what’s beyond the classroom.”

Crew members take the kids below deck and show them rescue and firefighting gear and even let some of them handle the .50-caliber machine gun, a student favorite, crew members said.

The Partnership In Education program was created in 2001. This is the first year the award has been shared by two units.

Reporter JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.