[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19752-19753]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        DECOMMISSIONING OF THE U.S. COAST GUARD CUTTER ``SEDGE''

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate the 
distinguished history of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sedge which will 
be decommissioned November 15, 2002, after serving 50 years in Alaskan 
waters, and to honor the many men and women who have served aboard her.
  The Sedge, a 180-foot seagoing buoy tender with a complement of 7 
officers and 54 enlisted personnel, was the 35th of the original 39 
buoy tenders built for the U.S. Coast Guard. Commissioned on July 5, 
1944, the Sedge began her long service with an assignment in Hawaii. 
Shortly after arriving in her new home port of Honolulu, she was called 
into service to support wartime operations. She served in the Pacific 
theater from 1944 to 1945, tending navigation aids in Guam, Okinawa, 
Anguar, Midway, Pearl Harbor, and Shanghai.
  On February 26, 1947, the Sedge was decommissioned and mothballed. 
But the old girl's life was not over. She was recommissioned in 
Seattle, Washington on April 14, 1950, with orders making Boston, MA, 
her new homeport. However, on May 1, new orders sent the Sedge to 
Kodiak, AK, instead.
  After 7 years of service in Kodiak, the Sedge was transferred to 
Cordova, AK on July 15, 1957, serving there for almost 16 years. In the 
spring of 1973, the Sedge shaped a course for the Coast Guard Yard in 
Curtis Bay, MD, for major renovation. She came out of the yard with a 
new lease on life--updated propulsion machinery, a new hydraulic buoy 
handling system, a bow thruster and improved quarters.
  After about a year of work, the Sedge was recommissioned and departed 
for yet another new homeport: Homer, AK. She arrived in Homer on 
November 8, 1974.
  The Sedge's primary duty is to maintain aids to navigation that make 
maritime travel possible and safe. For the last 28 years, she has 
maintained 73 shore aids and 19 buoys in and around Alaska's Cook 
Inlet, and she has done it well. But throughout her history she has 
also done her duty on other matters: national defense, search and 
rescue, maritime law enforcement, and environmental protection.
  In the early 1950s, radar stations in the Arctic--the DEW Line--
needed regular servicing and supplies. Convoys would meet in Nome, AK, 
for the voyage, and the Sedge was there. This included the year she was 
locked in the ice pack for 3 days, and the year she was called on to 
rescue an LST that was in severe danger in an Arctic storm.
  In 1962, she rescued six people who had been adrift in a life raft 
for 5 days.
  After the gigantic Alaska earthquake of 1964, the Sedge helped 
evacuate people from stricken towns and villages in Prince William 
Sound. She braved many difficulties including the unpredictable seas 
and tides after the earthquake, including one unheard of minus 30-foot 
tide that put her hard aground in Prince William Sound.
  In 1989, she was back in the Prince William Sound for another 
disaster. She was the first Coast Guard cutter to respond to the Exxon 
Valdez oilspill. The Sedge helped skim 4,000 barrels of oil off the 
water soon after the incident. Afterwards, the crew of the Sedge

[[Page 19753]]

constructed a lighted tower on Bligh Reef, the shoal on which the Exxon 
Valdez ran aground.
  The history of the Sedge contains too many such stories of lives 
saved and lives touched to relate them all. Suffice it to say that the 
men and women who have served on board the Sedge have earned the many 
accolades and honors they have received, including the Coast Guard 
Meritorious Unit Commendation, the World War II Victory Medal, the Navy 
Occupation Service Medal, the Coast Guard Special Operations Service 
Ribbon, the Department of Transportation Outstanding Unit Award, the 
Coast Guard Unit Commendation, the Coast Guard ``E'' Ribbon, the Coast 
Guard Bicentennial Unit Commendation, the National Defense Service 
Medal, the Coast Guard Arctic Service Medal, and the Humanitarian 
Service Medal.
  The Sedge will work her last aid to navigation on November 5, 2002, 
before her scheduled decommissioning on November 15, 2002. She will be 
replaced next summer by the USCGC Hickory, a brand-new seagoing buoy 
tender, but she will not be forgotten.
  I am proud to commemorate the decommissioning of this great ship, the 
Sedge, and to honor the distinguished achievements of the officers and 
enlisted personnel who have served our Nation so well.

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