Thread by @hejoha21

Last February, USCGC Diligence, aided in seizing over $190 Million dollars in pure cocaine. Not bad for a ship nearly 60 years old.
#CoastGuard

This January, the USCGC Dauntless, who responded to the 1986 Challenger disaster, now just over 50 years old, interdicted a 20 foot boat with 11 Dominican migrants attempting to illegally reach the shores of Puerto Rico.

Last week, a Station Barber’s Point MH-65 Dolphin Helicopter (built in 1980, new engine in 2004) rescued a 37 year old fisherman off of Kaui.

Coast Guard Small Boat Station Hoboken, New Jersey, rescued five duck-hunters using a 24-foot Special Purpose Craft (2008)

Today, the Coast Guard Cutters Biscayne Bay (1979), Moro Bay (1981), Alder (2004), and Mackinaw (2004) are hard at work keeping shipping lanes open in the Great Lakes.

Similarly, the Polar Sea (1970) the Coast Guard’s only operating heavy icebreaker, is participating in Operation Deep freeze, again, helping to keep shipping lanes clear and getting our scientists to McMurdo Station in Antartica.

Today, brave young men and women aboard ten 110’ft Island Class cutters (built in the late 1980s) stationed in Bahrain provide support to Operation Enduring/Iraqi Freedom.

The #CoastGuard is used to doing more with less. It’s become a secondary motto, just after Semper Paratus.

an article to Naval Proceedings, Admiral Zunkuf said it best; “Doing more with less” are appropriate words for a martyr, and the one certainty of being a martyr is inevitable death.”. A death the service may be nearing.

Though the #CoastGuard is recapitalizing their fleet, starting with the National Security Cutters (2008) and the Fast Responder Class (2010), the majority of the fleet still shows its age. Some of the ships still in service date back to 1940.

Many of the ships were built in the late 1970’s through the 1980’s; making them old enough to be the parents of many of those serving aboard. The workhorse of the fleet, the 210’ and 270’ cutters, are old enough to have retired from the military 3 times!

Despite the aging fleet, #Coastguard members proudly serve the American people every day, never complaining of the lack of resources we have to complete our vital missions to the American citizenry. Each day, our members go out in the storm to rescue the forlorn sailor.

They launch their small boats in high seas to stop narcotics traffickers. They inspect ships to ensure their safety, respond to oil spills, enforce fisheries, and complete their ELEVEN statutory missions. They proudly do more with less.

But today, we finally cannot do more with less, there is nothing lower to offer us as our brave men and women work without pay. Today it is our call for help that needs answering.
#CoastGuard #thread #ShutdownStories @CGMutualAssist

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