The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)
The Coast Guard patrols the maritime borders, ports, and rivers of the United States. The USCG prevents unauthorized vessels from entering, responds to maritime disasters, and conducts search and rescue operations. It occupies an odd space between the military and federal law enforcement, and has a mandate that applies to both. The USCG is a member of the the armed forces but is part of the Department of Homeland Security. It is the only branch of the military with widespread federal law enforcement powers, and the only military branch within DHS. Coast Guardsmen are officially called “sailors,” and colloquially referred to as “coasties.”
BUDGET: Just over $8 billion in 2015.
The Coast Guard Operative at a Glance
POWERS OF ARREST? Yes
EXPECTED TO CARRY A WEAPON? Yes
ACCESS TO FUNDS? Can be supplied with a credit line if traveling or on an investigation or mission, up to a Standard expense without eliciting official review
OPERATIONAL BUDGET/RESTRICTED ITEMS? A Bureaucracy roll can provide a wide range of maritime and survival gear. Survival and nautical gear such as thermal suits, wetsuits, and well-stocked medical kits are available as a Standard expense. Surveillance and navigational data and logs are available as Incidental expenses.
The Organization
The USCG normally operates under the Department of Homeland Security during peacetime, and can be transferred to the U.S. Department of the Navy by the President or by Congress during times of war. The Commandant of the Coast Guard reports to the Secretary of Homeland Security and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The USCG employs approximately 40,000 active duty personnel, with another 18,000 civilian employees and reservists. The Coast Guard auxiliary employs another 30,000 civilians as specially-trained support personnel.
The Coast Guard divides its geographic responsibilities into two area commands, the Atlantic Area Command and the Pacific Area Command. Each command includes sub-district commands with their own assets like cutters, boats, aircraft, installations, other vehicles, and equipment. Aside from the area commands, “functional commands” provide support, intelligence and training and are all based at Coast Guard Headquarters. The functional commands include Intelligence and Criminal Investigations, Response Policy, Command/Control and Information Technology, Prevention Policy, Operations, and administrative commands like Human Resources, Acquisitions, and Engineering and Logistics.
Coast Guard specialized units respond to highthreat or difficult circumstances. These elite forces answer to the area commands. They include the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON), Port Security Unit (PSU), Tactical Law Enforcement Teams (TACLET), the Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSST), the Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT), and the National Strike Force.
HITRON is an armed helicopter squadron specializing in the use of force to disable hostile watercraft in drug-interdiction missions. The Tactical Law Enforcement Teams conduct boarding, interdiction, and armed security operations. The PSUs are manned primarily by reservists. They rapidly deploy patrol boats and security personnel to protect installations. The MSST use armed and transportable patrol boats and provide high-threat interdiction and direct action. The MSRT is the Coast Guard’s primary SWAT equivalent, focused on maritime tactical entry and boarding. The NSF provides technical personnel (such as divers) and specialized equipment to respond to oil spills, hazardous materials releases, and possible weapons of mass destruction incidents.
Key Coast Guard Commands
» Operations Command (G-0)
Intelligence and Criminal Investigation
(CG-2)
Response Policy (CG-5R)
» Mission Support Command (G-M)
» Investigative Services (G-I)
Office of Investigations & Casualty Analysis
(CG-INV)
» Pacific Area Command
» Atlantic Area Command
Operatives
Unlike the other branches of the United States Armed Forces, which are largely prevented from acting in a domestic law enforcement capacity by the Posse Comitatus act, the Coast Guard has law enforcement powers which apply to all commissioned officers, warrant officers, and petty officers. They are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and receive the same pay and allowances as members of the other uniformed services.
As a small service, the Coast Guard invests junior officers with more operational responsibility than other military branches. There is too much to do under difficult circumstances to consolidate command and control in the same way as the Army or Navy. Instead, the Coast Guard empowers officers to lead, especially when deployed on operations. This fosters self-reliance and confidence. The Coast Guard does not emphasize training as strongly as the other military services, because its personnel are always on missions, giving significant opportunities to learn on the job.
Authority and Mandate
The Coast Guard’s primary missions include maritime safety, security, and stewardship. It has a number of sub-missions including maritime homeland security (border protection), maritime law enforcement (MLE), search and rescue (SAR), marine environmental protection (MEP), and the maintenance of river, coastal, and offshore Aids To Navigation (ATON).
The Coast Guard patrols all of America’s coastlines, including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other territories and protectorates. Rivers and ports also fall under Coast Guard jurisdiction, though that responsibility is often concurrent with other federal agencies like Customs and Border Patrol and the EPA. USCG vessels patrol international waters, especially the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. The USCG is especially active during and after maritime or coastal disasters such as hurricanes and floods.
The USCG supports military operations overseas, working closely with the Navy
Field Operations
The Coast Guard is best known for its search and rescue missions. When a call for help comes in, the local installation commander evaluates the suspected size of the distressed craft and what assets are available, then dispatches a helicopter or boat (or, rarely, shore based fixed-wing aircraft or a nearby cutter).
Daily responsibilities involve maintaining location buoys and maritime navigational aids as well as inspecting suspected toxic spills or failing infrastructure. The National Response Center (NRC), which is operated by the Coast Guard, is the primary point of contact for reporting suspected oil, chemical, radiological, and biological spills in the United States and its territories.
When conducting counter-drug and interdiction operations, USCG cutters and aircraft (cutter-based helicopters and shore-based maritime patrol aircraft, or MPA) search for unidentified vehicles, usually boats. If an MPA locates a suspicious craft that refuses to identify itself, a helicopter or interceptor boat launches to check it out. If the vessel fails to stop after visual and verbal warnings, things become more serious. The chase craft fires warning shots. If those do not convince the suspects to stop, the gunner attempts to disable the vessel by shooting its engines. Once the craft is stopped, it is boarded and searched.
Areas of Friction
The Navy provides support in terms of personnel and ships, platforms, and installations. The USCG also works closely with ICE and Customs and Border Patrol.
Sometimes the Coast Guard comes into conflict with other law enforcement agencies when mandates overlap. The DEA is interested in the Coast Guard’s role in stopping and confiscating illegal narcotics entering the U.S. When traffickers operate at a port, the coasties and DEA may trip over one another due to miscommunication or parallel investigations. Similarly, ICE and Customs and Border Protection often have crossover of mandates once illegal activities reach a point of entry into the U.S.
Generally, the Coast Guard is seen as competent and effective, if a little slow in producing necessary paperwork.
Playing a Coastie
Working for the Coast Guard means you understand the importance of taking responsibility. Your mission is law enforcement focused but with military tools. It’s a good thing, too, because with anything less, many more lives would be lost. The unofficial motto of the Coast Guard is, “You have to go, but you don’t have to come back.” Whether you fly a helicopter, man the radar on a cutter, or process travel vouchers for reimbursement, the ethos of the Coast Guard is to do your job and to take responsibility for your actions. For most coasties, this is empowering.
The operational tempo of the Coast Guard is unrelenting. If you are on the operations side of things, you are busiest when weather or conditions are the worst. Your “office” may involve rough seas, darkness, bitter cold, equipment failure in the middle of nowhere, and Murphy’s Law. This is why the Coast Guard trusts you with tactical, operational, and command decisions. If it always relied on the chain of command, nothing would be done in time. The Coast Guard has to trust you to make smart decisions.
Because of the challenges, you take pride in your work. The Coast Guard gets things done. It saves lives. It makes the region safer. It catches bad guys. It does all these things because of its strong reliance on the team. You are often most comfortable working within a group. You put a lot of faith in leaders who work with the people they lead and who use the team member’s strengths.
You likely value practical solutions to problems. The mission is key. If the standard operating procedure is an impediment, figure out a better way. Coasties prefer to ask forgiveness rather than permission. More often than not, leadership supports decisions that promoted a successful mission despite going against the “book.” But if you make a bad call, that’s firmly on you. There will be analysis after the fact, rest assured. A fundamentally bad decision means punishment, especially if it cost lives.
Coast Guard basic training teaches that you aren’t a hero. You may have signed up because you want to be a hero, but that is drilled out of you quickly. Heroes make stupid decisions. Heroes dive into obviously dangerous waters when it would be smarter to use a harness. No, you aren’t a hero. You are a professional. Save yourself so you can save others.
Suggested Professions
Search and Rescue Team (SAR)
In many ways SAR teams are the hearts and soul of the Coast Guard. SAR units are expected to face the worst environmental conditions head on to save lives.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS:
» Alertness 60%
» Athletics 60%
» Craft (Electrician) 40%
» Craft (Mechanic) 40%
» First Aid 50%
» Foreign Language (Spanish) 20%
» HUMINT 40%
» Navigate 50%
» Pilot (Small Boat) 50%
» Pilot (Helicopter) 30%
» Science (Meteorology) 50%
» Swim 60%
BONDS: 2
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Alertness, First Aid,
Navigate, Swim.
EQUIPMENT: Portable search and rescue gear, water
survival equipment, thermal wetsuit, swimming gear.
Office of Response Policy (CG-5R)
Response Policy works closely with other military branches to create joint counterterrorism programs and training opportunities. Response Policy is also the primary point of contact on counterterrorism missions involving Coast Guard assets.
PROFESSION: Program Manager
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Accounting, Bureaucracy,
Persuade, Military Science (Sea).
EQUIPMENT: Contacts throughout the military and
access to classified terrorism or military operations files.
Office of Investigations and Casualty Analysis (INV)
INV builds detailed case analyses of deaths or serious injuries that are the result of Coast Guard operations.
PROFESSION: Anthropologist or Historian.
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Craft (Electrician or Mechanic), Forensics, HUMINT, Search
EQUIPMENT: A sizeable online and physical library
of disaster history and data (crashes, hurricanes,
flooding, and so on).
The Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON)
HITRON combines the mobility of a helicopter with some of the military’s best and most experienced sharpshooters. HITRON snipers specialize in disabling watercraft with large caliber precision shots.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS:
» Alertness 60%
» Athletics 40%
» Bureaucracy 30%
» Craft (Electrician) 50%
» Craft (Mechanic) 50%
» Firearms 60%
» Heavy Machinery 40%
» Military Science (Sea) 50%
» Navigate 50%
» Pilot (Helicopter) 50%
» Science (Meteorology) 40%
» Swim 50%
BONDS: 2
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Alertness, Craft (Mechanic), Firearms, Pilot (Helicopter).
EQUIPMENT: Per TOOLS OF THE TRADE: SPECIAL OPERATOR on page 85 of the Agent’s Handbook, as well as a custom Barrett M82 .50 caliber sniper rifle with telesopic, infrared, low light, holographic, or laser sights.
Tactical Law Enforcement Team (TACLET)
These teams deploy aboard U.S. and allied naval vessels to conduct maritime law enforcement missions such as interdiction of narcotics smugglers and arresting suspected pirates.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS:
» Alertness 50%
» Athletics 40%
» Bureaucracy 40%
» Criminology 50%
» Drive 50%
» Firearms 50%
» Foreign Language (Spanish) 50%
» Forensics 30%
» Heavy Weapons 50%
» HUMINT 60%
» Law 30%
» Persuade 50%
» Search 50%
» Swim 60%
» Unarmed Combat 60%
BONDS: 2
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Alertness, Firearms, Military Science (Sea), Pilot (Boat).
EQUIPMENT: Per TOOLS OF THE TRADE: FEDERAL AGENT
on page 85 of the Agent’s Handbook, as well as basic
water survival gear.
Maritime Safety and Security Team (MSST)
MSSTs patrol the waterways around large ports with a focus on combating national security threats.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS:
» Alertness 60%
» Athletics 50%
» Bureaucracy 30%
» Craft (Mechanic) 40%
» Criminology 40%
» Firearms 40%
» Heavy Weapons 50%
» Law 40%
» Military Science (Sea) 50%
» Navigate 50%
» Pilot (Small Boat) 60%
» Science (Meteorology) 40%
» Search 30%
» Swim 60%
BONDS: 1
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Alertness, Forensics,
HUMINT, Stealth.
EQUIPMENT: Per TOOLS OF THE TRADE: FEDERAL AGENT
on page 85 of the Agent’s Handbook as well as basic
water survival gear.
Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT)
MSRT are a waterborne SWAT team that boards and secures vessels held by terrorists or hostage-takers.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS:
» Alertness 60%
» Athletics 60%
» Demolitions 40%
» Dodge 60%
» Firearms 60%
» Heavy Weapons 50%
» Melee Weapons 50%
» Military Science (Sea) 60%
» Navigate 50%
» Search 40%
» Stealth 50%
» Survival 50%
» Swim 50%
» Unarmed Combat 60%
BONDS: 1
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Alertness, Athletics,
Firearms, Law.
EQUIPMENT: Per TOOLS OF THE TRADE: SPECIAL OPERATOR
on page 85 of the Agent’s Handbook, as well as
restraining gear to make arrests and hold suspects.
National Strike Force (NSF)
These teams mitigate disastrous oil discharges, hazardous substance releases, events suspected to involve weapons of mass destruction, and other environment-related emergencies. Strike teams are based in Alabama, California, and New Jersey.
PROFESSION: Scientist.
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Bureaucracy, Science
(Chemistry), Science (Environmental), Science (Meteorology).
EQUIPMENT: Environmental and chemical surveillance and technical gear.