Robb, I totally agree. The "excuse" is that the Coast Guard is horribly underfunded ( always has been) and overburdened. I may be prejudiced, but our smallest service delivers more "bang for the buck" than just about any other government agency. That is not to say there are not bad judgement calls or even gross incompetence. I was once on midwatch, manning our rescue coordination center. I picked up a distress call in our sister lifeboat unit's area. I called him without response ( the watch was asleep!) I hit our alarm and then caught hell because it wasn't our area. When I finally explained there was no response the two duty coxswains began arguing over whos turn it was to go. I assigned another seaman to my watch, grabbed a crew and we got underway. I raised Airstation Astoria ( Oregon) and got a helo up ( One good thing about small outfits; I knew the C.O. from previous Alaskan duty.) When we finally arrived ( meanwhile a duty driver was dispatched to the other station to find out what was going on there) the boat was capsized. My swimmer entered the capsized vessel and rescued the two crew.Our C.O. round filed my promotion papers, rejected my recommendation the swimmer receive the Coast Guard medal and gave us extra duty. Like I said, it's a small service. I called my old C.O. He swopped sleepy head ( now busted to E1) with my swimmer and got him the medal, and gave me my icebreaker so I could see the Antarctic.