Birthday of the USCG’s MSST today, history rewritten

Posted on 3 July 2009 by Ryan Erickson | Comments

There is no questioning the day that the Maritime Safety and Security Teams were born that the mission of the Coast Guard took a major shift. Regardless of such, today in 2002 was the day that MSST 91101 in Seattle was commissioned. From the Coast Guard historians site-

2002- The first of the Coast Guard’s Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSSTs), MSST-91101 was commissioned in Seattle, Washington on 3 July 2002. MSSTs were created in response to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on 11 September 2001. MSSTs are domestic, mobile units that possess specialized training and capabilities to perform a broad spectrum of port safety and security operations. They were designed to offer operational commanders with a quick response capability that would meet changing threats in the nation’s harbors, ports, and internal waterways and to enforce moving and fixed security zones to protect commercial high interest vessels, U.S. Navy high value assets, and critical waterside infrastructure. Twelve MSST units were planned for deployment around the nation.

I’m not about to get into continual debate of whether the Coast Guard has since then focused too intensely on the Homeland Security mission and not enough on its legacy Search and Rescue mission… we can do that after the holiday weekend. But I still remembering the day they were commissioned while on duty up at Air Station Kodiak and thinking how cool it would be to do that job… I guess it was the Infantryman in me.

With that, I wish all the MSST’s a Happy Birthday and a safe holiday weekend.