On topic: Support the troops
 

On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 04:25:23 -0700, Tim wrote:

On Oct 3, 5:00 am, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:16:52 -0700, Tim wrote:
On Oct 2, 7:08 pm, "JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:

National Defense: Defend the nation as one of the five U.S. armed services.

"one of the five U.S. armed services?"

But technically are they an "armed service"?

Yes.

Read up on the history.

OK.

Wondering because they fall under the Dept. of the Treasury, and not
the Dept. of Defense.

Neither. Homeland Security.

The USCG has been pased around and has worn many hats, I forgot that
they had been trasfered out of the USDOT and now to Homeland Security
just 5 years ago.

In the cold war days I asked a Navy recruiter a hypothetical question
sort of like the days of Red October

"OK, supposingly a soviet sub was found in the mouth of the
Mississippi Delta, then would the Coast Guard fall under the Dept of
the Navy?

he said: "I would certianly hope so!"

The above was stated in about 1978 well before the 2003 transfer

My Dad was USCG right before WWII and when it began, all assets were
transferred to the Navy as I understood it.

Thanks for his service!

That's how he met my Mother actually. She was one of the female radio
operators at the USCG station in Atlantic City, NJ and later one of
the chief operators at the famous USCG radio station on Cape Cod.

Her discharge papers indicate that she wasn't no mere operator either
- CPO. She never talked much about it, but when I first became
interested in radio, she taught me Morse and we used to converse in
Morse all the time. Even at 80 YO, she could still copy a solid 30
WPM. When she passed on, I put her favorite "bug" in the casket with
her.

One of my Dad's sisters was a Army Air Force transfer pilot - flew
B-25s and Stratofortress across the Atlantic to England and later in
the war, flew P-51 Mustangs to Continental Europe - unarmed into some
hot zones.

Amazing people that WWII generation - duty, honor and sacrifice was a
part of their general social gestalt.