Pick 44 - Patriotic Sacrifices

My late father was a Veteran of WWII, but was not recognized as such until 1988. He was a Merchant Marine. In peacetime, the Merchant Marine is a civilian service that handles commercial cargo. But the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 allowed it to be converted during wartime to an auxiliary of the U.S. Navy. And during the war, the Merchant Marine provided vital logistical support as allied forces fought on three continents. As then Gen. Dwight Eisenhower put it, "When final victory is ours there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine."

But when World War II was over, the Merchant Marine's greatest advocate, Franklin Roosevelt, was dead. And Congress never conferred official veterans' status on the service, meaning merchant mariners didn't get to take advantage of G.I. Bill or home loan programs that veterans of the other branches did. Only in 1988, following a federal court ruling, were they given official discharge papers and allowed access to federally administered medical care by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Merchant mariners played a critical support role for the Navy and other branches during World War II, ferrying fuel, troops and cargo to hot spots where fighting was taking place. Even though merchant vessels didn't have a combat mission, many were attacked and 733 were sunk. A year after the war, the government reported that 5,638 merchant seamen and officers were dead or missing and 581 were taken prisoner. In fact, the Merchant Marine death rate was 1 in 26, the highest rate among the services in World War II.

My father was never bitter about this gross oversight. Although several of the ships he sailed during the war were sunk by German submarines he felt that God had protected him and the Merchant Marine Corps had given him more adventure and insight into life than any other experience. He sailed around the world twice--once from the West Coast and once from the East Coast. One of the supply ships he sailed on had delivered supplies to a desperate Russian port city that was under attack. Shortly after the Cold War ended with the break up of the Soviet Union, the new Russian Ambassador to the US delivered a special note of thanks addressed to all of the crew on that ship. The official notice included a medal of valor awarded by the Russian Government to all who had helped the port city survive the German invasion. My father just shrugged it off...typical of The Greatest Generation. From him I learned that the hidden value in patriotic sacrifice does not lie in the sacrifice itself but in the lessons the next generation takes from it. Thanks for serving Dad!

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