Happy 228th Birthday to the United States Coast Guard!  The Coast Guard is the oldest maritime service in the US government and somehow always succeeds in doing the most with the very least. 

The United States Coast Guard was established as the Revenue Cutter Service on August 4, 1790, eight years before Congress authorized the Department of the Navy. In the period between when the Congress disbanded the Continental Navy in 1785 and the establishment of the US Navy, the Revenue Cutter Service served as the nation’s only armed force on the sea.  (Of course, the Navy claims their founding dates back to the disbanded Continental Navy because, well, they do.)

The US Coast Guard has an incredible range of duties. It has at least 11 different missions, including port, waterways, and coastal security; drug interdiction; aids to navigation; search and rescue; living marine resource management; marine safety; migrant interdiction; marine environmental protection; ice operations; and other law enforcement functions related to fisheries management.  And, it must be ready to serve as part of the US Navy during wartime. 

Remarkably, the Coast Guard undertakes these varied missions with a yearly budget of around $9 billion, or just slightly more than the cost of a single new destroyer, and well below the cost of a new aircraft carrier. 

So again, happy birthday to the US Coast Guard and thanks for the fine job that you are doing!