This five-page graduate paper examines the role the United States Coast Guard plays in protecting the United States and its environment. The author notes that the USCG is confronting dangers posed by drug smuggling, environmental pollution, and global terrorism, and examines why the men and women of the Coast Guard have had to redouble their efforts to protect the American people from the dangers of a twenty-first century world plagued by terrorist lunatics, unprecedented environmental pollution, and increasingly sophisticated drug smuggling.