The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is a military branch of the United States involved in maritime law, mariner assistance, and search and rescue, among other duties of coast guards elsewhere. One of the seven uniformed services of the United States, and the smallest armed service of the United States, its stated mission is to protect the public, the environment, and the United States economic and security interests in any maritime region in which those interests may be at risk, including international waters and America's coasts, ports, and inland waterways.

USCG has a broad and important role in homeland security, law enforcement, search and rescue, marine environmental pollution response, and the maintenance of river, intracoastal and offshore aids to navigation (ATON). It also lays claim to being the United States' oldest continuous seagoing service. The United States Coast Guard has about 40,150 men and women on active duty.

The U.S. Coast Guard is the primary guardian of America's waterways and coastlines. We carry out the peacetime missions of maritime safety, maritime law enforcement and national security. We are a part of the Department of Homeland Security and we have a 200+ year legacy of maritime law enforcement and border protection. Coast Guard men and women are policeman and sailors, warriors, humanitarians, stewards of the environment, diplomats and guardians of the coast. On an average day the U.S. Coast Guard saves 15 lives, assist 114 people in distress, protects $4.9 million in property, interdicts 26 illegal migrants at sea, conducts 122 security boarding's and conducts 82 search and rescue cases. In the last year the Coast Guard seized more than 350,000 pounds of cocaine at sea, worth an estimated street value of more than 4.7 billion dollars. In the last ten years, the Coast Guard has seized more than 2 million pounds of cocaine.

In March 2007 the U. S. Coast Guard and the Drug Enforcement Administration had a record maritime seizure of approximately 42, 845 pounds of cocaine. This record-breaking seizure denied drug lords $300 million in drug revenue. In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Coast Guard embodied the charge of its motto Semper Paratus -- Always Prepared -- by helping to save the lives of over 33,000 hurricane victims in what was the largest search and rescue mission in U.S. history.