News

08.06.2026

Your will. Your legacy. Made easy with this free tool from CGMA.

By Alena Howard, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance August is National Make-A-Will Month, and if creating a will has been on your to-do list, now is the perfect time to take that important step. A will is one of the most meaningful ways to protect the people and causes you care about. It provides clarity for […]

07.31.2026

The CGMA Open: A First-Class Experience at an Exceptional Value

By Jenna Nichols, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance ALCOAST 235/26, which officially announced the 2026 CGMA Open, is out, but there is much more to this year’s tournament than could fit in one Coast Guard message. The CGMA Open will be held November 10–12 at Reunion Resort & Golf Club in Kissimmee, Florida. Over three days, […]

07.28.2026

#1 — History Made: How USCGC MUNRO Completed a Historic 119-Day Patrol

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance For 119 days, the crew of USCGC Munro operated far from home. They crossed more than 26,000 miles and two oceans. They trained for national defense, pursued drug smugglers in the Eastern Pacific and tracked a sanctioned tanker across the North Atlantic. By the time Munro returned to […]

07.28.2026

#2 — Chasing the Shadow Fleet: Operation Southern Spear

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance It begins with a helicopter. Not a warning shot. Not a radio call. A helicopter. As its rotors churn the air above a moving tanker, a team descends onto the deck below. Within moments, the bridge is secured, the crew is under control and another vessel operating outside […]

07.27.2026

#3 — Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City: A Rescue to Remember

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance Some Coast Guard search and rescue cases are remembered for the weather. Others for the distance offshore. This one is remembered for a frantic dog and an exceptionally calm cat. On Dec. 30, 2025, two mariners found themselves aboard a disabled 40-foot sailing catamaran approximately 65 miles southeast […]

07.27.2026

#4 — Operation River Wall: Coast Guard Boat Forces on the Rio Grande

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance The Rio Grande presents a different kind of maritime challenge. Unlike the open ocean, crews navigate narrow channels, shallow water, shifting currents and constantly changing river conditions where boat handling and local knowledge are just as important as speed. When the Coast Guard launched Operation River Wall in […]

07.24.2026

#5 — Breaking Through: How USCGC Polar Star Keeps Antarctica Within Reach

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance At the bottom of the world, there are no alternate routes. Each austral summer, as Antarctica emerges from months of darkness, the United States depends on one ship to do what no other American vessel can: cut a path through some of the thickest sea ice on Earth. […]

07.22.2026

#6 – You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide: Inside USCGC Stone’s Historic Counter-Drug Patrol

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance The eastern Pacific Ocean is one of the world’s busiest maritime drug trafficking corridors. It’s also one of the largest operating areas the U.S. Coast Guard patrols. “The eastern Pacific is just a massive area that only a limited amount of assets can target,” said Lt. Cmdr. Naylor. […]

07.22.2026

#7 – Where Surfmen Are Made: Inside the Coast Guard’s National Motor Lifeboat School

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance Where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean, powerful river currents collide with incoming swells to create one of the most dangerous stretches of navigable water in North America. Mariners know it as the “Graveyard of the Pacific.” Since 1792, nearly 2,000 vessels have been lost in these […]

07.21.2026

#8 – Inside the Coast Guard’s Advanced Helicopter Rescue School

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance Every Coast Guard rescue is different. The crew rarely knows exactly what they will find. A distressed mariner in breaking surf. A stranded climber on a cliff face. Families trapped by floodwaters. A lost hiker beneath a dense forest canopy. Whatever waits at the other end of the […]

07.21.2026

#9 – Force From Above: How HITRON Changed Maritime Drug Interdiction

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance Somewhere over the Eastern Pacific, a Coast Guard helicopter crew waits for authorization to engage a fleeing go-fast vessel. Their rifles are not aimed at the people aboard. They are trained on two outboard engines bouncing across open water. Moments later, the engines are disabled, the vessel slows, […]

07.20.2026

#10 – When the Great Lakes Freeze, the Coast Guard Gets to Work

By Donnie Brzuska, Coast Guard Mutual Assistance Before you ever see a Coast Guard cutter, you hear it. Ice on the Great Lakes doesn’t simply crack. It groans under pressure, giving way with a deep report as thousands of tons of steel climb onto its surface before crushing through. Behind the cutter, a channel begins […]