Everton vet wants credit for Merchant Marine time

For years after World War II, Al Reid looked on as his friends used the GI bill to go to college or to buy homes. Though he had faced similar dangers and risked his life in the pursuit of victory, Reid had not received the benefits that others enjoyed.

The Everton resident was a member of the U.S. Merchant Marine, a service that long went unrecognized as part of the military. As such, he never received benefits or a pension.

Now in his later years, Reid is hoping that he and others like him can at long last enjoy some of those benefits.

The “Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2009” was recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and is now being reviewed by the Senate’s Committee on Veterans Affairs. If passed, the bill would establish a fund to pay a $1,000-a-month stipend to surviving merchant mariners who served between 1941 and 1946.

“All we want is recognition for what we did,” said Reid, a former Harrison chief of police.

Reid was a member of the Merchant Marine from 1944 through 1947. Sailing in the north Atlantic and the south Pacific, he helped supply American armed forces with food, supplies and weapons throughout the war. In the Pacific, he served in the Okinawa campaign.

Reid would soon discover that the life aboard a Merchant Marine ship could be fraught with as much danger as any naval vessel.

“Kamikazes picked on Merchant Marine ships because we didn’t have guns,” Reid said.

It’s estimated that about 250,000 civilian sailors served in the Merchant Marine by the end of the war. The number killed range as high as 9,000, with 12,000 wounded and 600 taken prisoner.

Throughout the war, sailors in the Merchant Marines were concerned only with defeating the enemy, not attaining recognition.

“We had a job to do and nobody thought about getting a reward,” Reid said.

After the war, he recalled, “real” veterans often accused him and other merchant mariners of being cowards and draft dodgers.

Some other countries acknowledged the contributions of Merchant Marines before the United States did. In 1993, Reid received a letter from Vladimir P. Lukin, the Russian ambassador to the United States. On behalf of the Russian people, Lukin thanked Reid for his war effort and included a commemorative medal.

“They thought more about us than the Americans did,” Reid said.

In 1988, after a long legal battle, Merchant Marines won classification as veterans by the Veterans Administration.

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