True Mariner

Doug Squirrel, civilian mariner and author of True Mariner, wants you to consider this:¿ If America's merchant mariners stayed home, the US Navy's warships would grind to a halt in ten days.¿ A West Coast Longshoremen's Strike was estimated to cost $2 billion per day in lost GDP.True Mariner is the American Merchant Marine's modern-day memoir. Doug Squirrel follows the lives of civilian mariners as they progress from college to financial independence. This true story is set onboard...
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Doug Squirrel, civilian mariner and author of True Mariner, wants you to consider this:¿ If America's merchant mariners stayed home, the US Navy's warships would grind to a halt in ten days.¿ A West Coast Longshoremen's Strike was estimated to cost $2 billion per day in lost GDP.True Mariner is the American Merchant Marine's modern-day memoir. Doug Squirrel follows the lives of civilian mariners as they progress from college to financial independence. This true story is set onboard US-Flagged merchant ships, as well as civilian-crewed US naval auxiliaries providing underway replenishment to warships. In addition to firsthand accounts of contemporary life at sea, Doug Squirrel chronicles American seafarers' lives at the maritime academy, the union hall, and their places of residence and leisure. True Mariner brings to light these unsung men and women of great consequence. As such, this book has already earned its keep: ¿ First comprehensive memoir of the US Merchant Marine since Herman Rosen's Gallant Ship, Brave Men, published in 2003 and set onboard a World War II Liberty Ship.¿ This is the first published evaluation of American maritime education since the early 1970s, when the US Maritime Administration published a book on marine firefighting. ¿ This is also a true work of blue-collar literature.