West Hawaii native retires after 30 years in Coast Guard

His first unit was the CGC Morgenthau, the cutter that became the first Coast Guard ship deployed to the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation Vigilant Sentinel. That early assignment sent Freitas on a route that matched the reach of the service itself, with a flight from San Francisco to New York, then on to London and Bahrain before a Navy helicopter and then a Coast Guard helicopter carried him to his ship in the Persian Gulf. The mission came at a moment when U.S. maritime forces were enforcing pressure against Iraq after the Gulf War.

From there, Freitas’ career widened across the service. He worked as a flight mechanic in Port Angeles, handled patrol duties in Kodiak, served in Puerto Rico and later took on leadership roles in Washington and on the East Coast. The Coast Guard later placed him at Air Station San Francisco as command master chief, a senior enlisted role that advises commanders and represents the enlisted workforce. He also served at Cape Cod, adding another posting to a résumé that stretched from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

What made the story resonate on the Big Island was the way Freitas tied that career back to Milolii. He said his home had no running water and just one electrical outlet, and that his family life was shaped by fishing for food and learning to adapt. That resilience, he said, prepared him for military life and the constant demands of a difficult job. In a community widely known as Hawaii’s last traditional fishing village, that connection carries its own weight. Milolii became Hawaii’s second Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Area in 2022, building on the state’s earlier designation of 18 miles of coastal waters on either side of the village.