Dennis E. Benner, Giving Back - Thomas M. Cooley Law School

Feature6 Michaelmas Term 2005Cooley Law SchoolGrad Deployed inthe Afte rma t hBy Sonya L. Leibowitz, LT, USCGofKatr i n aShortly after graduating from Thomas M.Cooley Law School (Turner Class, 1991),I began working as an associate at a smalllaw firm in Battle Creek, Mich. My careeradvanced quickly and in 1995, I accepteda position with the Calhoun County CircuitCourt, as a Family Division Referee.While I found the position incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable,as many of you know, burnout is an often inevitable consequenceof working within the Family Court System. Afterabout six years with the Family Court, and shortly after9/11, I found myself searching on the Internet for a wellneededvacation. It was then that an advertisement poppedup, “Coast Guard-Jobs that Matter.” In 2003, I entered theU.S. Coast Guard, and as you can imagine, life has been awhirlwind ever since. Of all the experiences that I have hadin the Coast Guard, the one which has left the greatest personalimpact has been my deployment in the aftermath ofHurricane Katrina.On Monday, Aug. 29, 2005 as Hurricane Katrina made hernow notorious and disastrous journey to the Gulf Coast,many of us in our Coast Guard office were staring withunwavering vigilance not into the face of the storm, but intothe TV screen and the media’s uninterrupted coverage of thebiggest natural disaster to ravage the United States in nearlya century. As an active duty Coast Guard Judge Advocate(JAG), assigned to the Coast Guard’s Maintenance andLogistics Command Atlantic, the Coast Guard’s largest legalfield office, I never actually thought that I would be deployedand certainly not deployed into something that would laterbe described as “in theater.”On Wednesday, Aug. 31, legal teams were formed; I wasdesignated as a lead attorney and sent off to the “theater.”BENCHMARK