Happy Birthday to the U.S. Coast Guard

 For the Coast Guard’s 236th Birthday, Here Is Its Story and That of Its Veterans

It's the oldest continuous seagoing service in the U.S. and the only armed force that answers to Homeland Security instead of the Pentagon.

From 10 Ships to a Fifth Armed Service

The Coast Guard's roots trace to Aug. 4, 1790, when Alexander Hamilton, then secretary of the treasury, persuaded Congress to authorize construction of 10 small vessels called revenue cutters. Their job was narrow and unglamorous: Enforce tariff and trade laws and stop smuggling that was starving the young federal government of revenue it desperately needed to survive. That force became known as the Revenue-Marine, then the Revenue Cutter Service in 1894.

The modern Coast Guard didn't fully take shape until 1915, when the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the U.S. Life-Saving Service, combining law enforcement and armed maritime authority with organized search and rescue under a single command. Along the way, it also absorbed the Lighthouse Service and the Bureau of Navigation, giving it a mission set that stretches from drug interdiction and port security to icebreaking, environmental response and saving people out of the water in conditions almost no other agency is equipped to operate in.

See the entire article, here, on Military.com