Coast Guard Renames New Icebreaker Program ‘Polar Security Cutter’

Crew of U.S Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) in 2014. US Coast Guard Photo

The U.S. Coast Guard changed the name of its heavy icebreaker program to highlight its importance to national security, as funding for the first-in-class ship may be in jeopardy.

Now dubbed the Polar Security Cutter, Coast Guard leadership and backers on Capitol Hill are determined to secure funding for the planned new class of heavy icebreaker – the first for the Coast Guard in more than four decades – by...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/27/36846

SECDEF Mattis’ Speech to Cadets at Virginia Military Institute

The following is the text and video of Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ Sept. 25, 2018 speech at Virginia Military Institute.

GEN. J.H. BINFORD PEAY III: Please be seated. Good morning members of the corps of cadets, members of the board of visitors, members of the academic board, faculty and staff, guests, and ladies and gentlemen: Welcome to this morning’s special presentation by our country’s sitting Secretary of Defense, the Honorable James N. Mattis.

VMI is honored to welcome Secretary...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/26/secdef-mattis-speech-cadets-virginia-military-institute

Wasp ESG Assessing Damage to Guam, Northern Marianas from Typhoon Mangkhut

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit Humanitarian Assistance Survey Team rides on a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 262 (Rein.) Marine Corps photo.

The Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) with embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is assisting in the assessment of typhoon damage to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The islands of Rota, Saipan and Tinian, as well as nearby Guam, were in the path of Typhoon Mangkhut, which...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/12/36483