Meet the neglected 43-year-old stepchild of the US military industrial complex
(World News USA)

SEATTLE (Tribune News Service) - The icebreaker Polar Star was 1,000 miles out of its home port of Seattle last December, three days into its yearly voyage to resupply scientific bases in Antarctica, when a powerful swell hit its bow and flooded the deck. The ship shuddered. The roar of the ventilators in the galley quit as Joseph Sellar, a stocky 25-year-old Coast Guard culinary specialist from New Hampshire, watched seawater explode from the ceiling. He lunged toward a switch to close the overhead vents. With a loud pop, an outlet ejected a purple spark. `Are we sinking?` asked a petty officer on temp duty from Virginia. Sellar knew better. `Calm down,` he said, whipping out his cellphone...