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Those feelings of being helpless stick with you.

Will Florez (US Coast Guard, 1988-2010) struggled with feelings of guilt and failure because of events that happened during his Coast Guard service.

Transcript

We had to

deal with migrants leaving Cuba,

the Dominican Republic,

Haiti, and dealing with

huge numbers of people,

that were trying to make

it to the United States.

It was difficult to see men,

women and children in rafts

trying to make it

to the United States, trying

to survive the journey.

Unfortunately,

many of them did not succeed

where we had to recover men,

women and children,

infants

that had perished at sea.

Even though we did our very

best with all the capabilities,

all the training,

that it didn't matter, sometimes

it was out of our hands.

And those feelings

of being helpless

stick with you.

They permeate your psyche,

they make you feel guilty.

And guilt is a huge part

of what I deal with.

The guilt of not

having the best results.

Even though the effort was

put forth, the skills were used,

the training

that we have, the equipment,

but the guilt of failure,

and that's the key

word for me was failure.

sticks with me

even today

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