caliber machine gun

12.01.09

If by Sea

9/11 fanned fears of more terror attacks by air. But our 95,000 miles of coast may be much more permeable. Here's the new defense strategy.
By David Helvarg Posted 08.08.2002 at 11:33 am 0 Comments

Scanning the slate-gray waters of San Francisco Bay on an overcast spring day I spot more eider ducks and gulls than barges or ships. We're patrolling past Alcatraz in a 41-foot Coast Guard utility boat that's almost as old as its blue-eyed 30-year-old coxswain, Chuck Ashmore. Ironically, this old workhorse, with its aging marine radio and soon-to-be-installed Vietnam-era .60-caliber machine gun, is on the cutting edge of a revolution in homeland-or, I should say, home water-security.

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