WEST TEXAS SAILOR: For the past couple of days, we’ve been tracing the history of the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II and the experiences of some local men who survived that dangerous service without the fanfare accorded to those who served in the armed forces.

The mariners weren’t considered veterans until 1988 and they didn’t receive the GI benefits like college tuition and favorable home loans given to military veterans after World War II.

One of those mariners was Bob Kirk, who retired from the Forest Oil Corp. tax department in 1988 after 30 years with the company.

Bob grew up in arid West Texas, far from any ocean, river or lake, where there were more dust storms than rain storms.

He was in his first year Southern Methodist University in Dallas during World War II when he decided he would enlist in the Navy.

His eyesight didn’t pass muster for the Navy, but it turned out the Merchant Marine was considerably less selective.

“They weren’t too particular,” Bob said. “They had a terrible loss ratio. They needed everyone they could get.”

Bob served on ships crossing the North Atlantic, where hundreds of freighters and warships were sunk during the war at the cost of thousands of lives.

“I didn’t know how dangerous it was” at the time, he said.

Bob survived and stayed in the Merchant Marine for a time after the war ended. He returned to college at Southwestern University in Texas and got a rude surprise.

While students who were military veterans got their tuition paid and were given a monthly stipend to attend college, Bob had to pay his own way.

“I was promised the sky when I joined, but that all turned out to be nothing,” he said.

Bob finished his undergraduate degree, earned a master’s at Texas A&M and worked in Texas until he was recruited in the late 1950s to join Forest Oil in Bradford.

The 1988 court ruling that designated members of the World War II Merchant Marine as veterans came decades too late to benefit Bob and his fellow mariners as much as those in the armed forces.

But as Veterans Day nears, we can at least give them the recognition they earned — and deserve — with a salute and a thank you for their service.