South

South. . , “Throughout the nation’s history, the people and vessels of the U.S. Coast Guard and its forebears have departed from New York to fight for our nation’s freedom and protect its economic interests. During the War of 18 12, the Revenue Cutter Vigilant captured the British privateer Dart in nearby waters. Hand-to-hand combat during the boarding made it one of the most daring captures of the war. New York vessels waged Prohibition’s Rum War in the 1920s. Drug interdiction was prosecuted locally and in the Caribbean from the 1970s on. For years, Governors Island-based cutters conducted Caribbean operations, rescuing tens of thousands of Cuban refugees in 1980 and Cuban and Haitian refugees in 1994. Brave men and women of the Coast Guard, Coast Guard Reserve and Coast Guard Auxiliary have battled the hostile forces of nature, in aircraft and vessels, to save lives and aid distressed vessels. The U.S. Life Saving Service, founded in New Jersey in 1848, had a saying, ‘You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.’ All America honors those Coast Guard personnel who went out and particularly those who did not come back.”