Posted on: Friday, January 23, 2004

EDITORIAL
Coast Guard's role reflects new world

Once saddled with the image of a "second-class navy," the U.S. Coast Guard is finally beefing up under increased homeland security efforts.

The expansion means Honolulu will receive a fast-deployment unit known as the Maritime Safety and Security Team by the end of the year. The unit will include 80 additional active-duty Coast Guard personnel, along with some reservists and six 25-foot boats packing extra firepower.

It's no secret that the nation's oldest maritime agency has been spread wafer-thin in the wake of 9/11. In addition to looking out for terrorist threats in the ports and waterways, the Coast Guard's functions include search and rescue, environmental protection, marine safety, drug enforcement, fisheries enforcement and illegal immigrant interdiction.

Not that it's not accustomed to handling multiple missions.

The Coast Guard was created by an act of Congress in 1915. Before that, its job was spread among several independent agencies, the Revenue Cutter Service, the Lighthouse Service, the Steamboat Inspection Service, the Bureau of Navigation and the Lifesaving Service.

Originally, the Coast Guard's enforcement responsibilities included ensuring the payment of tariffs, protecting shipping from pirates and other unlawful interdiction and intercepting contraband. During Prohibition, Coast Guard cutters launched the unpopular "Rum War at Sea."

In the early 1960s, after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, the focus was on patrolling the Florida Straits and assisting Cuban refugees.

A decade later came the war on drugs as the Coast Guard seized hundreds of vessels carrying narcotics. And those efforts continue today.

And, of course, it was involved in countless war efforts, including Operations Desert Shield and Iraqi Freedom in the Persian Gulf. When terrorists hijacked and crashed commercial jets into the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon, Coast Guard units from New York were among the first military efforts to provide security and assistance to those in need.

A year later, the Coast Guard became part of the Department of Homeland Security, ending the agency's 36-year term under the U.S. Department of Transportation.

We sincerely hope the recent changes will make for better protection of our ocean boundaries and free up Coasties to ensure that cruise ships don't pollute Hawaiian waters, among other concerns.

For it's clear that an overworked, understaffed and poorly equipped Coast Guard cannot keep up with the plethora of post-9/11 needs.