> > Back in the time he is referring to, the Coast Guard also used to escort
> > marine traffic beyond the US Coast.  As Joe pointed out, that changed
> > sometime during or after WWII and may have only been a war-time thing.
> > Early in that war, we lost some Coast Guard vessels in the North Atlantic
> > to enemy fire (U-boats, I think).

> Something like this happened in Canada, too -- the Navy did the full escorting
> of suypply vessels, but our domestic coat guard expanded their purviewfarther
> way from land than they'd normally be -- more as an early waerning system than
> s an actual fighting unit.  I don't recall reading of any that were sunk --  j
> t RCNavy ships, by, likewise, uboats.

I expanded my knowledge of the US Coast Guard, and also the Canadian armed
forces, while touring the Great Lakes.  I have forgotten much (I need to go
back and read my notes), but that is where I learned that our Coast Guard
was not always restricted to domestic operations in the past.  There are a
few memorials/historical markers dedicated to Coast Guard units lost during
the early days of WWII on the lakes.

> War just plain sucks, even when necessary (as a few were)

Yes indeed it does.  Most serious conflict, whether it be large wars or
small, interpersonal conflicts, plain suck.

Mike


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