JUNE 30, 2026 – The Olympic Peninsula is home to one of the most unique ecosystems in the world. Noteworthy for its extreme elevation changes—the landscape spanning coastline to the snow-capped Olympic Mountains— it is home to the largest temperate rainforest in the continental United States and species of wildlife and plants found nowhere else on earth due to the region’s geographic isolation. Continue north to where towering pine trees give way to the rocky coastline of the Salish Sea, one can even find the U.S. Coast Guard Station that serves as an operational hub for the Maritime Force Protection Unit (MFPU) Bangor.
Established in 2007, the MFPU is a specialized single-mission unit dedicated to providing strategic in-transit security escorts for U.S. Navy ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) as they transit U.S. territorial waterways until they slip silently beneath the waves.There are only two MFPUs in the United States—one at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and the other at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia—to coincide with the two bases that support the Navy’s fleet of SSBNs. For Lt. Cmdr. James Provost, the operations officer and lead patrol commander of MFPU Bangor, mission success begins the day prior to an escort event with rigorous study of potential risk and threat factors.
“I’m looking at the weather, looking at civilian traffic going to and from the major ports in the area like Vancouver, Seattle, and Tacoma,” said Provost, who describes himself as a “cutterman” by trade—referring to Coast Guard ships greater than 65 feet in length—and who had been vying for an opportunity to serve at the MFPU after previously being stationed in Seattle…