The Goal-Line-Defense PARADIGM

Homeland Security Begins at the Water's Edge

By DAVID VERGUN

Sea Power production editor David Vergun met with members of the Coast Guard's new antiterrorism team in June 2002 during their initial training at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

A pair of stocky crows feasting on road kill flew away in haste as the lead formation jogged along in double-time, breaking the early morning stillness with an ear-splitting chorus of "ooh-rahs."

Two other formations in the distance were heard shouting similar Marine Corps chants. It was a scene one would expect at any given time of day at Court-house Bay in Camp Lejeune, N.C.--thick with Marines from the Riverine Training Center (RTC) and Marine Corps Engineer School.

As the formations neared the finish of their four-mile run, two curious features stood out: (1) the 72 runners were not Marines; (2) they were wearing the blue work uniform of the U.S. Coast Guard (with the unit insignia USCG MSST 91101 stitched on their caps).

It was Thursday, 20 June, and the superbly conditioned Coast Guardsmen, who had been in training since 2 June, had only eight more days to go until graduation. The first members of the Coast Guard's new Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSSTs), they were training to gain the skills needed to prevent terrorist attacks against U.S. ports, waterways, and coastal areas. The unit's 91101 designation is a constant reminder of the gravity of their mission--and of the consequences of failure.

"They [the MSSTs] are the nation's goal-line defense in ports; their mission ... [is] to stop terrorist attacks when all else fails," said Cdr. Fred White, supervisor of the Coast Guard's Port Security Unit Training Detachment (PSU TRADET), which trains the MSSTs. It would be preferable, though, White quickly added, to stop terrorists before they arrive in or off the coast of the United States--by inspecting ships, and the containers or other cargo they carry, in foreign ports, for example, or aboard vessels far offshore--and to use the MSST teams only as a last resort.

Capabilities and Training

The MSST personnel--along with their custom-built boats and lethal as well as nonlethal weapons--can, rapidly and on short notice, be shuttled aboard C-130 transport aircraft or trucks to ports other than the ones to which they normally will be assigned--e.g., MSST 91101 will be assigned to Seattle, Wash. Twelve MSSTs are scheduled to be created during the next three years and assigned to ports across the country, where they will be available to respond to requests for support from the local Coast Guard captain of the port (COTP). One of the COTP's principal duties is to provide port security in his or her area of responsibility (AOR); the COTP's jurisdiction encompasses all vessels, waterfront facilities that receive vessels, bridges, and nuclear facilities on federal waterways within the AOR.

The MSST training is modeled, in part, on the training provided for the Coast Guard's PSU and LEDET (Law Enforcement Detachment) programs. PSU and LEDET units are responsible for a number of "traditional" Coast Guard duties. The PSUs provide harbor defense in overseas environments. The LEDETs enforce counternarcotics laws from U.S.- and foreign-flagged naval ships.

Some of the MSST training, according to White, is similar, including small-vessel tactics, rules of engagement, weapons-handling, and "noncompliant" boardings. Nearly all MSST students have had previous training and experience in some or all of these areas, White said.

However, and despite the similarities with other Coast Guard law-enforcement training, MSST training focuses on several new and critical skills. The MSSTs are trained, for example, White told Sea Power, in worst-case scenarios to operate against elusive, fast-striking, and violent terrorist attacks on or below the waterline, while under threat of chemical, biological, or radiological attacks.

Port-vulnerability assessments, special-weapons tactics, the interdiction of high-speed boats, stopping hostile swimmers, and the recognition of--and immediate forceful response to--suspicious activity in a way that minimizes harm to innocent bystanders are among the principal "new skills" needed by MSST personnel.

Joint Operations Likely

MSST students will use the expertise acquired at Camp Lejeune to train local law-enforcement personnel, as well as other Coast Guardsmen, within their various AORs. Most students probably will return to Camp Lejeune for follow-on advanced training at least once during their careers. White said he expects to see MSST-like training provided for Navy and Marine Corps units with similar missions--the Navy's Mobile Security Force already goes through a special naval coastal warfare training course.

"The Coast Guard is spread too thin to be everywhere at one time, so joint operations against terrorism as a force multiplier will be necessary," White said. He said that the MSSTs and other military as well as state and local law-enforcement units will be networked with one another, and with the COTP, via satellite-laptop computer links that can display radar, video, and sensor inputs--tied in with useful databases and secure communications--to provide immediate situational awareness. White said that he expects to see the eventual standardization of interservice antiterrorism training, probably under the Coast Guard's PSU TRADET leadership.

MSST instructors already have been helping to train the Marine Corps coxswains at Courthouse Bay who drive the riverine assault craft and other small craft used in RTC training. The joint Coast Guard/Marine Corps training started in 1999, when the PSU TRADET was established at Camp Lejeune.

Additionally, White said, there will be more joint antiterrorism exercises similar to Exercise Harbor Shield, conducted earlier this year in Charleston, S.C. There also is an international need for MSST-like antiterrorism capabilities, he said. Panama, Canada, and Greece already have expressed a strong interest in such training, and a number of students from Greece will begin MSST training at Camp Lejeune this autumn.

"It is all coming together at lightning speed," White said. "I have never seen anything move out as quickly as this standup, beginning with the development of new antiterrorism operations doctrine and capabilities, to the training of our first MSST this month and the second MSST beginning next month.

"Our leadership is firmly committed to doing whatever is necessary to prevent another terrorist attack," he said.

White also had high praise for the assistance the Marines have provided at Courthouse Bay. "Being with the Marines here has been valuable," he said. "Their service-over-self attitude has been an exemplary model for our students to follow. We would not be where we are now without them. They have graciously opened their waterways and training ranges to us, fed us in their chow halls, and provided berthing in their barracks.

"This partnership is the perfect marriage. It is the same partnership that brought us success during World War II when ... [the Coast Guard] brought Marines up on the beaches with our landing craft. We are now regrowing those ties."

A 3rd class machinery technician (name withheld for security reasons), one of several of the 25 MSST instructors who are former Marines, said that training the men and women of MSST 91101 to protect the U.S. homeland is "the most satisfying job I have ever had."

Another instructor, a 2nd class machinery technician, said that the training "has been a great experience. It is easier making friends here than at other new units because we all arrived at the same time. Everyone has been stepping it up and coming together as a team."

One student, a 3rd class petty officer, said that she is often asked "about the 91101 on our caps." To this trainee, it is an obvious source of pride to tell the questioner what the numerals mean, and to know that she is a member of the first team of MSST students, which will set the standards for others to follow.

The Sands of Time

Coast Guardsmen are not strangers to Camp Lejeune. Sixty years ago, Private First Class Norman Hatch saw Coast Guard coxswains carry hundreds of Marines ashore at Camp Lejeune's beaches aboard LCVPs (landing craft vehicle, personnel) during WWII training exercises. Hatch and his fellow Marines would soon be transported from ship to shore on such distant beaches as Saipan, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy.

"Homeland defense then was another important mission of Coast Guardsmen along the East and West Coasts of the United States," said Hatch. He saw USCG coast watchers, armed with aging Springfield '03 rifles and carrying binoculars, patrolling the beaches at Camp Lejeune, looking for enemy submarines. "This was serious business," he commented. "The beaches were covered with oil from U.S. merchant vessels that had been sunk just off the North Carolina coast by German submarines."

Today's Coast Guardsmen, together with their counterparts in the other U.S. sea services, are once again protecting the U.S. homeland--following in the footsteps of their predecessors who left their footprints not only on the sands of Camp Lejeune but also on hundreds of islands in the Pacific during World War II. Their noble spirit lives on. *