The United Seamen's Service, sometimes abbreviated as the USS, is a non-profit, federally-chartered organization founded in 1942 to promote the welfare of American seafarers and their dependents, seafarers of all nations, US government military and civilian personnel, and other persons engaged in the maritime industry.

Since its inception, the USS has provided services overseas for American and international seafarers. USS's network of worldwide port centers offers seafarers two types of services:

1. Building-centered services which provide recreation, communications, counseling, food, beverages and gift shop and health articles; and outreach programs which bring USS services to seafarers on shipboard, in hospital or detention. Services include repatriation, hospital visits, detention serviceshelping seafarers in prison, legal assistance and communications services, with overseas phone, fax and mail facilities at the USS centers.
2. Ship-visiting and library services include staff visits to ships in port with information on local attractions, customs and culture and other required assistance. Fresh reading material, supplied by the USS affiliated American Merchant Marine Library Association
   American Merchant Marine Library Association
   The American Merchant Marine Library Association is an organization dedicated to placing a library on every United States Merchant Marine ship.- External links :*...
   
   , are brought to restock the ship's library.

There are currently 7 port centers open: Bremerhaven

Bremerhaven

Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

; Casablanca

Casablanca

Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...

, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

; Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia is a tropical, footprint-shaped coral atoll located south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean at 7 degrees, 26 minutes south latitude. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory [BIOT] and is positioned at 72°23' east longitude....

, B.I.O.T.; Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

, M.I.; Naha, Okinawa, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

; Pusan, Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

; and Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

, Japan. Many other centers existed during the years of World War II and thereafter, including centers in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

; Bandar Mahshahr, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

; Cam Ranh Bay

Cam Ranh Bay

Cam Ranh Bay is a deep-water bay in Vietnam in the province of Khánh Hòa. It is located at an inlet of the South China Sea situated on the southeastern coast of Vietnam, between Phan Rang and Nha Trang, approximately 290 kilometers / 180 miles northeast of Hồ Chí Minh City / Saigon.Cam Ranh is...

, Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

; Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

, Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

.

While the main charter of the USS is to serve merchant marine personnel, a large part of their clientele over the years has come from United States Navy and other international military personnel. As the constitution of merchant marine fleets changed over time, with many computerized supertankers requiring only a handful of crewmen to operate, and with military deployment adjustments, many centers were forced to close due to reduced patronage. As an example the center in Naples, Italy was heavily dependent on personnel from the United States Sixth Fleet; during the 1970s, aircraft carriers (such as the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67)

USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67)

USS John F. Kennedy is a John F. Kennedy class aircraft carrier, the last conventionally powered carrier built for the United States Navy. The ship is named after the 35th President of the United States, John F...

, destroyer tenders (such as the USS Grand Canyon (AD-28)

USS Grand Canyon (AD-28)

USS Grand Canyon was a built at the tail end of World War II, and named for the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River.Grand Canyon was laid down 16 November 1944 as a Maritime Commission type hull, under Maritime Commission contract at Todd Pacific Shipyards, Inc. out of Tacoma, Washington,...

 and USS Cascade (AD-16)

USS Cascade (AD-16)

USS Cascade , the only ship of its class, was a destroyer tender in the United States Navy.Originally designed as a passenger-freighter, the Cascade was launched on 6 June 1942 by Western Pipe and Steel Company in San Francisco, California. The ship was sponsored by Mrs. Charles W. Crosse, wife of...

, as well as myriad destroyers and patrol gunboats made Naples their home, and sailors found the USS facilities another home away from home.

The U.S. Military has long cooperated with the United Seamens' Service in a number of ways. DoD Directive 1330.16, issued July 10, 1971 (now cancelled) provided for policies, procedures, and responsibilities governing DoD cooperation with and assistance to the United Seamen's Service (USS) under Title 10, United States Code, Section 2604 .

Each year the USS confers its AOTOS (Admiral of the Ocean Sea) award upon individuals who have made significant contributions to maritime commerce.

The USS is one of 55 of the most respected charities which form the Global Impact coalition.