The mission of the Coast Guard Reserve is stated in the Reserve Policy Statement issued in 2018: Serving as the Coast Guard's only dedicated surge force the Reserve Component is a contingency-based workforce, trained locally and deployed globally to provide appropriately trained personnel to meet mission requirements within the prioritized focus areas of Defense Operations, Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security, Incident Response and Management, & Mission Support.
[3] Persons joining the Coast Guard after 1 February 1942 were signed on as regular reservists and were obligated to serve for "the duration plus six" months.
Uniquely among the Armed Forces, the Coast Guard was also given the authority to appoint other volunteers as "temporary reservists" without regard to age and physical fitness.
These temporary reservists were generally drawn from the Coast Guard Auxiliary and were, essentially, unpaid part-time service members utilized stateside to, among other duties, perform coastal patrols and port security.
[2] Due to increased tensions during the Korean War period, Congress authorized funding of the first Coast Guard Reserve units.
Four hours paid the reservist the equivalent of one day's pay for active duty Coast Guardsmen.
At the start of American involvement in the conflict, the Coast Guard anticipated calling up its reservists and auxilarists.
The plans for improvements in funding and full-time support billets for the reserve force are being evaluated during 2009 and full implementation will be phased in over the next four years.
[11] In 2000, the Coast Guard Reserve was deployed to the Middle East in response to the USS Cole bombing.
[12] The Coast Guard Reserve was also activated in response to the 11 September attacks and Hurricane Katrina during the early to mid 2000s.
[12] Recent deployments of the Coast Guard Reserve include the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Ian, the Mexico–United States border crisis, the MV Golden Ray incident [12][13], COVID-19 Response, and the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse.