Printer Friendly Page

AN OVERDUE "THANK YOU" FOR THE MERCHANT MARINE --

"We took more risks than any other service. We lost more

men as a percentage of those served. We got no GI Bill

of Rights. We got no veterans' benefits from the state."

 

 

For more information about the Merchant Marines, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=merchant
+marine&op=ph

Story here... http://www.nhregister.com/site/
news.cfm?newsid=18686018&BRD=1281
&PAG=461&dept_id=566835&rfi=6

Story below:

-------------------------

An overdue 'Thank You'

Ed Stannard, Register Metro Editor

 

They lost a larger share of their members during World War II than the Army, Navy or any other service.

Their average age is 83 and their numbers, about 9,500 nationally, are declining quickly.

The seamen of the U.S. Merchant Marine who brought supplies across the oceans to allies in Europe and the Pacific weren’t even classified as veterans until 1988.

So they believe the bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and now before the Senate, which would give the mariners or their widows $1,000 a month, is aptly named: The Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act.

"We got nothing" after the war ended, said Harvey Koizim of New Haven, a lawyer who served as a radio operator on numerous missions, including one to bring supplies to a radar base in Greenland.

The bill passed the House on July 30, with all five Connecticut representatives serving as co-sponsors.

The proposal is not without its opponents, however. Veterans of the armed forces fear losing some of their own benefits if the bill becomes law. The act calls for an appropriation of $120 million in 2008, declining to $75 million by 2012.

"We took more risks than any other service. We lost more men" as a percentage of those served, Koizim said. "We got no GI Bill of Rights. We got no veterans’ benefits from the state."

In order to receive local property tax exemption for veterans, Koizim and others just a few years ago received honorable discharges from the Coast Guard.

"This bill would correct a long-standing injustice to members of the Merchant Marine who served their country honorably during World War II," said U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn. "These courageous sailors braved the oceans to transport the necessary supplies needed to win the war in Europe and the Pacific.

"The vessels they piloted, often unarmed and lacking armor protection, were preyed upon by the submarine fleets of both Germany and Japan and suffered the highest casualty rate of any branch of service during World War II," Dodd said.

Members of the Merchant Marine are considered civilians during peacetime but as military personnel during wartime.

According to the Web site American Merchant Marine at War, 3.9 percent, or one in 26, died in service during World War II, or 9,521 of 243,000 serving. That compares with 2.94 percent of Marines, 2.08 percent of the Army troops, 0.88 percent of Navy sailors and 0.24 percent of Coast Guardsmen.

George L. Violette of Lisbon, Conn., who has been active in keeping the mariners’ cause alive, said he had trouble getting a job after the war because official veterans received priority. Military veterans also received education and mortgage benefits.

Violette and other mariners did not receive those benefits, even though convoys he served on were chased by German "wolfpacks" of six or eight U-boats, which would pick off the slowest merchant ships.

"I crossed the North Atlantic 32 times," Violette said. "In the English Channel we had a hole blown in us. … As soon as it was ready, I went back to sea on the same ship." It was armed only with a 50mm anti-aircraft gun, a 3-inch gun forward and a 5-inch gun astern.

The convoys were dangerous but vital. On the "Murmansk Run" to a Soviet port above the Arctic Circle, 40 convoys brought 15,000 aircraft, 7,000 tanks, 350,000 tons of explosives and 15 million pairs of boots, according to Merchant Marine at War.

Those opposing the $1,000 pension cite the benefits the mariners were granted in 1977, including medical treatment and burial benefits. Testifying against the bill, Bradley G. Mayes, director of compensation and pension service for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, called the measure "preferential treatment."

"This bill would authorize the payment of a greater benefit to a Merchant Mariner, simply based on qualifying service, than a veteran currently receives for a service-connected disability rated as 60 percent disabling," he told the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee in April.

The Disabled American Veterans also opposes the bill. In a statement issued Aug. 2, the 1.3 million-member organization said that, besides the inequity cited by the VA, the DAV "is concerned about the impact the legislation would have on other veterans programs that would be cut to pay for those pension benefits."

"I don’t quite understand why people would even single them out," said William T. Donahue, commander of the DAV’s Milford chapter. "They were considered to be employees and they were paid by the Merchant Marine."

Donahue, who served in the battles of Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Midway, said of the veteran mariners, "He had his choice. It wasn’t a case where he couldn’t join the Navy." He acknowledged merchant seamen also came under fire, but said, "They were getting better pay being under fire than we were."

To Donahue and other vets, mariners aren’t veterans in the strict sense. "A veteran is a person who served in the U.S. armed forces," he said.

The issue now is before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., on a trip to India and China, was unavailable to comment on the bill.

Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@nhregister.com  or 789-5743.

-------------------------

Larry Scott  --