Coast Guard Research Paper

In today’s world, there is more need for the United States Military to engage in combat and protect America’s borders, due to war and disruption between countries. All branches of the Military are important, but one branch stands among the rest, the United States Coast Guard. The United States Coast Guard was introduced as the Revenue Cutter Service, in 1790, whose main goal was to move ice blocks in the North Atlantic Ocean. In 1915 the service was changed to the United States Coast Guard under the Department of Treasury; later changed to the Department of Transportation. The United States Coast Guard was comprised of five separate federal agencies, most notably the Life Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service, whose main priority was …show more content…
Most recently, the United States Coast Guard has protected America from terrorists and enemies during the War on Terror, starting after the September 11 attacks. However, the United States Coast Guard has protected borders, during war, since the formation of the Revenue Cutter Service, such as the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War One, and, most notably, World War Two. In World War Two, the United States was at war with the Axis Powers, fighting the Germanic reign in European countries. While the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force were on the front lines, the United States Coast Guard protected America’s borders from home. Protection was made possible by new boats, the government, and other services. A prominent threat to the United States was U-Boats entering territorial water. Due to this concern, the United States Coast Guard created a beach patrol system, which searched for U-Boats and suspicious activity off the coasts of the United States. The beach patrol had a basic system of attacking suspicious boats. If there was a threat, the Coast Guardsmen on duty would drive a cutter near the boat and follow it until it left. The U-Boat would sometimes fire a spread of torpedoes which would indicate they would not back down, then the cutter would chase them until they left U.S. territory. During this time the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was …show more content…
However, borders are also protected during peace times. During peace times, there are threats to the United States such as intrusions and smuggling. Illegal smuggling has been a threat in the past and in the present to the United States, especially during the prohibition period. The prohibition period was in the twentieth century, when alcohol was considered illegal, due to morals which include alcohol damaging the American society and drinking went against God’s will. During this time, alcohol and drugs were smuggled into the United States through boats, often called “Blacks” or “Rum-Runners”, which transferred alcohol. Although many of the boats were on the coast lines, many of them stayed outside of an area, known as the 3-Mile Limit. If a boat was outside of the limit, the Coast Guard could not search the boat. Most often, Blacks would wait outside of the 3-Mile limit for the customer to come to them, rather than unload at the docks. Due to the circumstance, however, the Coast Guard was successful in stopping smugglers. The smuggling was along the coast lines, across Canada, and the Great Lakes. According to Guardians of the Sea, written by Robert Erwin Johnson, a past professor and a scholar of U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, during prohibition,“The Destroyer Force was established...Each division was assigned a specific patrol area, which destroyers would traverse each day, identifying blacks, reporting

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