The hostage crisis in Iran was a diplomatic crisis launched by a group of militant students who took over the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979.  The students were objecting to American influence in Iran and it's support of the Shah of Iran.  They captured 66 hostages that day, and of those captured, 52 were held until the end of the crisis 444 days later.  The turning point in the nightmare situation came on April 24, 1980 when the U. S. military attempted a rescue mission.  Operation Eagle Claw resulted in a humiliating mission evacuation that ended the lives of 5 Air Force airmen and 3 Marines.  It also resulted in President Jimmy Carter losing his re-election bid, and his successor, Ronald Reagan quickly tasked the U.S. military to create and develop a rapid reaction force package.  This resulted in the Department of Defense recognizing that the ability of the Coast Guard to provide small boat coxswains, law enforcement personnel, and shallow water manueverability would prove very beneficial in the many ports around the world where troops and equipment were off-loaded.  This was how the United States Coast Guard Port Security Units were born.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who at best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
--Theodore Roosevelt