Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Blogging the Sterling :: On the history of the Coast Guard

The Coast Guard is an "Aquatic holding company" where both the Executive and Legislative branches of government have said, "If it’s wet, give it to the Coast Guard."

We trace the Coast Guard's birth to 1790, but the conception, says Admiral Allen, was three years prior with the publication of Federalist Paper Number 12 wherein Alexander Hamilton wrote, "A few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our ports, might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of the laws."

The Coast Guard has accumulated missions over its history with the last major accumulation being the marine safety mission during World War II.

Notes Admiral Allen, the value proposition the Coast Guard makes is that "we provide a number of services with people and platforms who are multi-mission. We have ships that can do five things rather than five ships that can each do one thing."

1 comment:

Ryan Erickson said...

Well look at that, 200+ years later we are once again doing the mission of guarding said ports! Keep up the live bloggin', it's a good read.