Since its founding more than two hundred years ago, the United States Coast Guard has rescued over a million people. On any given day, Γ’β¬ΕCoastiesΓ’β¬Β respond to 125 distress calls and save over a dozen lives. Yet despite having more than 50,000 active-duty and reserve members on every ocean and on our nationΓ’β¬β’s coasts, great lakes, and rivers, most of us know very little about this often neglected but crucial branch of the military.
In Rescue Warriors, award-winning journalist David Helvarg brings us into the daily lives of Coasties, filled with a salty maritime mix of altruism and adrenaline, as well as dozens of death-defying rescues at sea and on hurricane-ravaged shores.
Helvarg spent two years with the men and women of the Coast Guard, from the halls of their academy in New London, Connecticut, to the frigid, storm-tossed waters of AlaskaΓ’β¬β’s Bering Sea, to the northern Persian Gulf, where they currently guard Iraqi oil terminals. The result is a masterpiece of adventure reporting---the definitive book on AmericaΓ’β¬β’s Γ’β¬Εforgotten heroes.Γ’β¬Β
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