The U.S. Coast Guard today

Naval War College Review, Spring, 2004 by Thomas H. Collins

The winter of 2003 was one of the coldest in decades in the northern United States. Coast Guard cutters from Maine to New York were employed to break ice along navigable rivers and waterways. Strong winds and bitterly cold temperatures on the Great Lakes created the worst ice season that region had experienced in more than twenty years, yet Coast Guard icebreaking cutters kept merchant vessels and barges on the nation's inland waterways moving.

A hemisphere away, in Antarctica, the icebreakers USCGC Polar Sea (WAGB 11) and USCGC Healy (WAGB 20) completed the most difficult resupply of McMurdo Station during the forty years of Operation DEEP FREEZE. They smashed through fifty miles of ice more than thirteen feet thick to enable American scientists to continue their studies of the earth's climate. Healy again headed out to sea soon after returning from Antarctica--this time on a four-month Arctic mission that included a circumnavigation of the North American continent by way of the Northwest Passage. In mid-November, Polar Sea left Seattle, Washington, for a return mission to Antarctica with the icebreaker Polar Star (WAGB 10) to escort resupply vessels participating in DEEP FREEZE 2004.

In home waters, Coast Guard units conducted more than 41,500 SAR cases as the year drew to a close, saving more than six thousand lives and assisting in safeguarding property. When several large tropical storms and hurricanes (including, in September, Hurricane Isabel) lashed the East Coast and inflicted extensive damage, Coast Guard personnel were at their stations, ready to respond--which they did, with traditional resolve.

As the lead federal agency for maritime security, the Coast Guard also worked closely with DHS directorates and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve its presence and responsiveness in the nation's ports, waterways, and coastal regions as part of its homeland security mission.

In March, incident to the onset of combat operations in Iraq, Secretary Ridge announced LIBERTY SHIELD, a comprehensive national plan to increase the safety of U.S. citizens and security of infrastructure while maintaining the free flow of commerce and people across the nation's borders. To enhance security along maritime borders and protect naval shipping and deployments en route to Iraq, the Coast Guard increased the number of patrols by its aircraft, cutters, and small boats. We also increased the number of escort vessels for commercial ferries and cruise ships; every high-interest vessel arriving at or departing from U.S. ports had an armed Coast Guard sea marshal on board to observe the crew and ensure that the ship made port safely. New security zones were established and enforced in and around critical infrastructure sites in many of the nation's major ports.

The Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, and the maritime industry also implemented the far-reaching provisions of the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) during 2003. Designed to protect the nation's ports and waterways from a terrorist attack, the law requires, among its many measures, area maritime security committees and security plans for facilities and vessels that may respond to a transportation security incident. The act significantly strengthens and standardizes the security measures of the nation's domestic port security team of federal, state, local, and private authorities.