Regarding the Coast Guard’s birthday, Quin Hillyer of the Washington Times/American Spectator sends in the following note:

Thanks for your post on the Coast Guard. It is worth noting that while other federal, state and local agencies utterly screwed up the response to Hurricane Katrina, the Coast Guard (and to a lesser extent both the state and federal Fish and Wildlife Services) rescued tens of thousands of people — at least 33,500 by this count, which I’ve seen confirmed elsewhere.
The Guardsmen were true heroes, yet never really got the credit due them. I’m glad you gave them some notice.
By the way, funny story: Either one or two days after Katrina (I can’t remember which), when I was living in Mobile, I called a Mobile friend who owned a number of Mobile rental properties to see if he had anything available for my relatives displaced from New Orleans and the Mississippi coast. I forgot my friend was a reserve Coast Guard officer after many years active in the Guard; anyway, I got him on his cell phone and he said, “Quin, I’ll think about it when I get back. Right now I’m on Coast Guard duty, standing at the edge of Lake Ponchartrain, figuring out where to go next to help people out.”
“The edge of the lake,” I said, incredulous. “I thought the flood waters still haven’t receded that far.”
“They haven’t,” my friend said. “The edge of the lake right now is on Napoleon and Baronne.” (That’s two streets away from St. Charles Avenue, if you know New Orleans at all. In other words, about five solid miles from the ordinary lakeshore….)

And another reader notes that some Americans are kind enough to thank the Coast Guard every year:

I lived in Grand Haven, MI for almost 15 years and moved away about 3 years ago.
The City has long called itself “Coast Guard City, USA” and has held an annual festival honoring the Coast Guard for quite some time.
This year’s festival just finished – info here.