Slackers & Suckers

Ten thousand men between the ages of 17 and 35, who customarily greet each other as "Slacker," "Draft dodger" and "Profiteer," stood for one and a half hours in the icy offshore wind at the United States Maritime Training Station at Sheepshead Bay, N.Y. last week and heard themselves lauded by President Roosevelt (by letter) and a No. 2 company of lauders as potentially gallant merchant seamen. To the undisguised relief of the station's 1,800 instructors, they uttered no boo, no Bronx cheer, and only a few rude mutterings.

Thus was inaugurated the country's largest wartime merchant marine training school: $14,000,000 worth of plant and equipment spread over 310 acres of what once was a honky-tonk amusement park, Manhattan Beach. The training school is geared to turn out 40,000 basically-trained sailors a year.

Rough and rambunctious, uniformed as sailors but fully aware that their civilian status permits nose-thumbing at M.P.s, the 13-week volunteer trainees sneer at their $50-a-month pay, wait for the day they sign on for double pay of $200 a month, or $250 for those qualifying for higher ratings. Extra bonuses for a voyage to dangerous ports come to about $150.

Exempted by draft boards when they enroll in the Merchant Marine Naval Reserve "for inactive duty," they spend five weeks in preliminary training. Then they are given eight weeks' specialized training as seamen, firemen, water tenders, oilers, messmen, cooks, bakers, clerks and pharmacist's mates. Trainees are taught to handle themselves in a lifeboat, spend a total of 90 hours on lifeboat drill alone.

Despite a five-day week, despite Saturdays and Sundays in New York, despite a maximum disciplinary penalty of being turned back to their draft boards, and despite a scale of living which costs the country $60,000 a day, nearly 15% of all those enrolled since Sept. 1 have quit in midcourse. Stay-ons salute them as "Sucker."

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