LTJG Reed

Pastor Richard Way, his son Andrew and I were blessed to meet LTJG Chuck Reed today in Houma, Louisiana. We met him at the end of his shift. He took about 15 minutes of his time off to talk with us.  We were able to talk some about the Coast Guard as this is a part of the Service I am least familiar with.

I was able to give him a Badges & Boots tract and business card.  We discussed the Bible for several minutes and he was able to tell me about when and where he accepted Christ as his Savior.

LTJG Reed also gave us some contact information for the future. We were so glad to meet him and thank him for his service.

Information below cited from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard)

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country’s seven uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the U.S. military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission (with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters) and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its mission set. It operates under the Department of Homeland Security during peacetime, and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy by the President at any time, or by Congress during time of war.

Created by Congress on 4 August 1790 at the request of Alexander Hamilton as the “Revenue Marine”, it is the United States’ oldest continuous seagoing service (The United States Navy lists its founding as 1775, for the formation of the Continental Navy. However, that was disbanded in 1785, and the modern U.S. Navy was founded in 1794). As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton headed the Revenue Marine, whose original purpose was that of a collector of customs duties in the nation’s seaports. By the 1860s the service was known as the United States Revenue Cutter Service and the term Revenue Marine gradually fell into disuse. The Coast Guard was formed from the merger of the Revenue Cutter Service and the United States Life-Saving Service on 28 January 1915. As one of the nation’s five armed services, the Coast Guard has been involved in every war from 1790 to Iraq and Afghanistan. As of 2012 the Coast Guard had approximately 42,000 men and women on active duty, 7,900 reservists, 32,000 auxiliarists, and 8,700 full-time civilian employees. In terms of size, the US Coast Guard by itself is the world’s 12th largest naval force.

The Coast Guard’s legal authority differs from the other four armed services: it operates simultaneously under Title 10 of the United States Code and its other organic authorities, e.g. Titles 6, 14, 19, 33, 46, etc. Because of its legal authority, the Coast Guard can conduct military operations under the Department of Defense or directly for the President in accordance with Title 14 USC 1–3. The Coast Guard’s enduring roles are maritime safety, security, and stewardship. To carry out those roles the Coast Guard has 11 statutory missions as defined in 6 U.S.C. § 468, which include enforcing U.S. law in the world’s largest exclusive economic zone of 3.4 million square miles (8,800,000 km²).  The Coast Guard motto is Semper Paratus (“Always Ready”).