. could you try lighting a match under your packer ? I mean you risk it burning , but it would be better than when you ' re wearing it <| sep |> What if you were the best on the team ? Why aren ' t you allowed to recognize that yourself ? <| sep |> For me , it was when Hillary conceded . <| sep |> I tried pressing the upvote button a total of 13 times before I realized what was going on . <| sep |> Did you catch the Special where they went from Earth to Terra in a Retaliator on a single tank of Qdrive fuel ? Edge of my seat the entire time . <| sep |> I see where you ' re coming from , but I think we ' re missing the point . If the issue was as you described it More military than law enforcement , the Navy wouldn ' t be asking if there are Coast Guard equities and roles in the South China Sea disputes . Thad Allen wouldn ' t be opining on the ascendancy of Coast Guards either . On the face of it , it may make sense to make a show of force via gray hulls but politically speaking it ' d only exacerbate the issue . Even more critically , as Thad Allen noted in the article I linked above , use of naval force isn ' t the future trajectory of these conflicts . There ' s a marked difference between a Navy Destroyer in the Persian Gulf sending a boarding party over to Yemeni fishing boat because it ' s suspected of hiding stinger missiles aboard , and attempting to send that same boarding party to a Chinese Coast Guard vessel . That isn ' t just optics , it ' s provocation . The very fact that you have multiple overlapping EEZ ' s is exactly why you can ' t rely on grey hulls . They have no military legitimacy challenging law enforcement contentions by any nation , because of UNCLOS and various other international norms . Even if acting on another nation ' s behalf , there is the risk of provocation . The U . S . Navy doesn ' t really care about constabulary missions , and that ' s really a cultural rather than a functional disposition . However they ' re being tasked with these missions in various theaters because functionally they ' re the only ones presently with the capacity to do so . This is why USCG enters the discussion . I think within 10 years we ' re going to see PATFORSWA style operation in the region , building off of our current partnerships . I think it will be jointly conducted by the USCG and Navy , and I ' m pretty sure you won ' t see anything bigger than an FRC and perhaps an OPC making up the operational assets . Once the sequester ends , i think the political will and the thinking that ' s been backing these activities will have the resources necessary to get it off the ground .