U.S. Coast Guard members and veterans won't have to be embarrassed at Dry Creek Cemetery anymore. An improved monument with the Coast Guard's name - spelled correctly this time - will be placed this fall.
Other changes on the sandstone monument should make it a source of pride to all veterans and service members.
The monument, in a section of Dry Creek next to the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery and reserved for veterans, was a subject of this column July 16. "Coast Guard" was misspelled when the lettering was carved six years ago for an Eagle Scout project. A Meridian woman, Carol Evans, has been working to get it corrected ever since.
Readers responded with more than enough in donations to pay for the repair work. Idaho Advantage Credit Union is paying to fix the stone, and Silver Diamond LLC is donating the concrete work for its base. Other donors, according to Boy Scouts spokesman Mike Jensen, were given the option of having their checks returned or contributing to a memorial fund.
The stone, Jensen said, will be placed in late September or early October.
Correct spelling won't be the only improvement. In addition to its misspelling, the monument had the armed services listed alphabetically - "Air Force, Army, Coast 'Gaurd,' Marines, Navy."
The ink on the column had hardly dried when readers began calling to say that that isn't the proper procedure. No one who has been in the military will be surprised to learn that there is a regulation for the order in which the services are to be listed on monuments - specifically the order in which they were founded.
The Air Force would be last, not first. The proper order is: Army (founded June 14, 1775), Navy (Oct. 13, 1775), Marine Corps (Nov. 10, 1775), Coast Guard (Aug. 4, 1790) and Air Force (Sept. 18, 1947).
Are those the only services that should be listed on the monument?
Officially, we have seven uniformed services - the five armed services plus the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Public Health Service. One reader who served in the public health service called to say it should be on the monument. Another, Bill Noah of Cambridge, called on behalf of the U.S. Merchant Marine.
"The health service would be a stretch, but the Merchant Marines, yeah," former Idaho State Historical Museum director and military history expert Ken Swanson said. "They suffered huge losses in World War II."
Officially, the Merchant Marine isn't one of the armed services. A strict interpretation of the rules would prohibit it from being included on a monument. Noah and other Merchant Marine veterans argue that the rules should change. And they have some impressive history going for them.
The Merchant Marine was founded in 1775, about two months before the Army was. Its privateers had more ships than the Navy during the Revolutionary War. It captured more than 2,200 enemy ships, compared with fewer than 200 by the Navy.
The trend continued during the War of 1812, and the Navy borrowed heavily from the Merchant Marine to enforce blockades during the Civil War.
The Merchant Marine has played a role in virtually every war. In WWII, according to its Web site, it suffered a higher rate of casualties than any of the armed services - losing one of every 26 men. The Marines were next (one in 34), the Army third (one in 48) and the Navy fourth (one in 114).
More than 8,000 Merchant Marine crewmen were killed and 11,000 were injured while transporting troops, tanks, ammunition and supplies. More than 600 became prisoners of war.
"Their casualties were horrendous," Idaho Military History Museum Curator Gary Keith said. "They had their ships shot out from under them, they'd put the survivors on another ship and it was sunk."
Noah was a member of the Merchant Marine in the Pacific. A kamikaze attack on the ship ahead of his in a convoy killed 133 crewmen. The Japanese tried to bomb his ship three times.
"We were lucky," he said. "They were close enough that we got wet, but they missed all three times.
" We were trained to fight right along with the Navy. They told us we were an armed service, but after training they discharged us and made us civilians so we didn't get the G.I. Bill."
Some WWII crewmen were granted veteran's status in 1988, after a long court battle. But the debate about the Merchant Marine's service status continues and isn't likely to be resolved any time soon.
Should they be on the monument? Opinions are sure to vary. But there's no doubt that they served honorably in combat.
Look at it this way. It would make a lot of old guys proud and happy to be included with those for whom 8,000 of their colleagues died. And, unlike "Coast Gaurd," it wouldn't embarrass anyone.
Tim Woodward: 377-6409
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