We're late on this, but wanted to pass along that on Saturday, one local law enforcement leader took over for another as commander of the Coast Guard's Port Security Unit 313, out of the Port of Tacoma.

Cmdr. Jim Andrews, chief of police in University Place, succeeded Cmdr. Jim Howatson, a captain assistant chief at the Tacoma Police Department.

The unit returned last month from a seven-month deployment to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was deployed in 2003 to the Persian Gulf to protect Iraqi oil platforms at the start of the war.

The 313th includes a mix of 140 active-duty and mostly reserve Coast Guardsmen.

Two items of note in the Army brigadier general promotion list put out (finally!) this morning:

• Col. Heidi V. Brown is the effects coordinator at I Corps and Fort Lewis. She was the first woman to command an Air Defense Artillery brigade (the 31st ADA out of Fort Bliss).

• Col. Stephen J. Townsend, now executive officer to the commander at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, was of course the commander of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Lewis on its last deployment to Iraq.

Also on the list is Col. Michael Shields, who commanded the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team out of Alaska on its Iraq deployment.

With Townsend and Shields' nominations, that makes Stryker brigade wartime commanders four-for-four on promotion to brigadier general. The other two were Michael Rounds, who commanded the 3rd Brigade on its first trip, and Bob Brown, who led the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division to Iraq in 2004-05.

Rounds is vice director for operational plans and joint force development on the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. Brown is the deputy commanding general for support at the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, set to return to Iraq this fall.