First Ship (Twelve Years in the Merchant Marine)

This is the first in a collection of six sea stories based upon the author's experience working aboard 17 freighters and tankers from 1970 to 1982. Set in 1969-70, this is a chronicle of a young man's flight from Viet Nam draft and potential arrest on unrelated charges. The story starts in Seattle and goes to the coast of Maine, a vegetable oil factory in New Orleans, the red light district of wartime Saigon, and ends up with hitchhiking on Route 66 to get back to Seattle from New Orleans.

John Merriam was an unlicensed seaman in the U.S. merchant marine for twelve years, while working his way through college and law school. He caught his first ship in 1970, a freighter in New Orleans bound for Saigon with a load of tanks and trucks for ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam). All told, the author worked aboard 17 freighters and tankers in 12 different job classifications for the deck, engine and steward departments. Other employment, before and between shipping out, included 19 full-time jobs in eight states ranging from carpenter to cab driver, roustabout in the oil fields to factory worker on an assembly line, and almost 20 years part-time as a downhill ski instructor on weekends. Mr. Merriam received a scholarship from the Seafarers International Union which paid for his law school tuition. Passing the bar in 1982, he was associate and then partner at a small law firm in Seattle before starting his own firm in 1996. His first maritime case after law school was to sue Ronald Reagan for shutting down the system of Marine Hospitals (taken over by the U.S. Public Health Service) in 1982. The case was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court but ultimately failed. Mr. Merriam now restricts his practice to representing individuals with maritime law claims for wages or injury. He is a sole practitioner with an office at Seattle's Fishermen's Terminal. The author lives with his wife, Kaye Walker, in Shoreline, Washington.