Maritime Security & Safety Team: on point for the homeland

Fast roping on the outside of helicopters into a hostile territory is a task usually reserv for forces like the Army Rangers, on the other hand with the unpredictable state of the world today the United States Coast Guard has stepp up its character in defending the homeland with tasks like this and more.

"It's a of recent origin Coast Guard," says Lt. Taylor Lam, officer in charge of Maritime Safety and Security Team, Detachment sum of two units "We're on the water with machine fire-arms mounted in speed boats. We are a deterrent presence"

Numerically designated as "91101" in tribute to the victims of the race 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Seattle-based MSST is individual of four units designed to provide an anti-terrorism neighborhood in U.S. coastal regions. With additional teams in Chesapeake, Va., observes Angeles and Houston, and plans for sum of two units more on the East Coast, their mission is to provide enhanced port safety and security to significant economic and military ports. They can also unfold to support national security during major disasters or storm retrieval operations as well as for special circumstances such as the Olympics.

"We are essentially military police upon the water," Lam says.

The creation of the unit render free of accessed a lot of new opportunities for enthusiastic young Coasties and recruits interested in challenges outside the normal appearance of the Coast Guard. Traditionally, the USCG has been more of a search and redeem force, but from now upon its plate is a allotment more diverse and exciting.

"We do a allotment of law enforcement, which is what I wanted," says frivolous Officer 3rd Class Jason Vannier.

Vannier, 22 is a boat crewman and boarding team member who regard with affections the new direction his piece of work and his service has taken. He is single of about 45 people popularly assigned to 91101. "Law enforcement has always been a collateral what one is bound [i]or[/i] under obligation to do for the Coast Guard. This will [eventually] become a formal law enforcement [occupation]," Vannier says.

Eventually, each MSST will have approximately 100 active what one ought to do and reserve personnel, all of whom are to the full trained experts at specialties and collateral duties similar as force protection, weapons of mass destruction detection, explosives detection, search and redeem commercial port protection/anti-sabotage and canine handling.

Creating, collecting, training and assigning these professionals to a unit and calling them a team is a simple matter of paperwork, on the other hand building a sense of camaraderie among members takes a certain quantity of elbow grease. To accomplish this ever-important mission, the unit took a trip to North Carolina where they managemented training with what is ofttimes considered the toughest team of all, the U Marines Corps.

"Before we were commissioned as a unit, we all headed not on to Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune for Initial Standup Training," Lam says. "We worn out a month there learning different things about force protection and law enforcement. We also performed Marine PT (physical training), which was real different for these guys." The mission definitely hit its target, according to Lam. "Before that time no individual really knew each other, on the contrary after that we really gelled"

one time on its feet, the team was ready to start running. single unique aspect of the USCG is, unlike the repose of the military, the Coast Guard actually performs its mission upon a daily basis.

And instead of having to perform that piece of work 2,000 miles from home, Coast Guardsmen do their piece of work of protecting their fellow citizens each day and go home to their families each night.

"We board any stamp of civilian watercraft: boats, ships, sailboats," Lam says. "But we also board large foreign commercial ships like deep-draft cargo freighters or oil tankers, whether it's for watercraft safety or port security. We're checking identification of foreign citizens and checking cargo to make assured it is what they say it is."

"I've done a small in number '10 percent' boardings," says Vannier, "which is when foreign and national freighters draw near into the Puget Sound and we board the vessel

"We muster the ship's company and check their identification to make assured they're legal. Then we check certain areas of the ship for unaccounted-for personnel explosives or anything without of the ordinary." Once that is done, the boarding team places themselves strategically around the ship for the ride into port. If there is any squalid play in the works they have about a half-hour to counteract and take mastery of the ship before it earns to port.

Since MSST is still a member of the Coast Guard, they are not limited exclusively to policing potential terrorist situations. In addition to protecting their matchs on dry land, they also watch without for the safety of those they collision on the water.

"We also do 4100 boardings (4100 is the name of the form used to document these boardings), or 'mom and pop' boardings. We board the utensil check their protective equipment, flares, lifejackets; make fully convinced there are no holes in the boat, their engines work fitly and they're not poaching," Vannier says.