US Coast Guard removes swastika from training center, launches inquiry

A drawing of a swastika that appeared at the US Coast Guard’s primary recruit training center in New Jersey was removed, and the incident has been referred for further investigation, the service says, adding that it condemned the display of hate symbols.

“Following discovery of a hate symbol drawn on a bathroom wall in a building at Training Center Cape May, the Coast Guard immediately referred the matter to the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) for investigation – consistent with longstanding Coast Guard policy,” a US Coast Guard spokesperson says in a statement. “This hate symbol was immediately removed.”

The Washington Post reported that a Coast Guard instructor discovered the drawing of the antisemitic symbol on Thursday evening on a men’s bathroom wall at the Cape May training center in southern New Jersey.

The Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Kevin Lunday, traveled to the recruit training center and spoke to about 900 recruits and staff members to address the incident, the service says.

“Anyone who adheres to or advances hate or extremist ideology – get out. Leave. You don’t belong in the United States Coast Guard and we reject you,” Lunday says in a statement shared by the Coast Guard.

The Washington Post reported in November that the Coast Guard had revised language in its workplace harassment manual to recharacterize swastikas as “potentially divisive,” rather than characterizing them as hate symbols.

Lunday said at the time that “claims that the US Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses or other extremist imagery as prohibited symbols are categorically false.”