Today's Bee has a story about Merchant Marine veterans finally getting recognition for their service during World War II. This is an old tale in my family. My late uncle, Benny Duncan, served -- proudly -- in the Merchant Marine, and I grew up hearing his stories of trial, danger and triumph.
I also grew up knowing that his service wasn't recognized in the same fashion as that of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who wore the uniform of their country during the war. Merchant mariners, for instance, never received the G.I Bill benefits that uniformed veterans got and used to build the most remarkable economic engine the world has ever seen in the postwar period.
One irony is that Navy gunners assigned to protect the merchant vessels were often given medals and other honors for enduring the same tribulations as the merchant sailors, who largely went unrecognized.
Rep. George Radanovich has long supported legislation that would pay a small stipend to the 13,000 surviving merchant mariners or their widows. Rep. Jim Costa has joined that effort. My thanks to both.
And no thanks to the city of Fresno, which handed out parking tickets to many of the Merchant Marine honorees and their families who attended the ceremony yesterday at the downtown Legion of Valor Museum in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Sheesh.
Few if any deserve more praise than these Merchant Marine Vets from World War II. In ships mostly unarmed (except maybe one cannon), they plied the oceans and privided the life blood to our armed forces, those of other nations, and their peoples as well. U-boats specially targeted them, and a shortage of escort vessels made them very vulnerable. Hooray to these men, and to finally giving them their due.