Merchant Marine

* Re “U.S. Merchant Fleet Kept Afloat With Tax Dollars,” May 23: Most merchant seamen live modest lifestyles and earn between $20,000 to $70,000 a year, depending on their job title, union affiliation and the availability of work. You are more likely to find a seaman renting an apartment in San Pedro or struggling to make his mortgage payment in Long Beach than you are to find one living Chief Engineer Richard Moylan’s “great lifestyle” in Mill Valley. Didn’t your reporter have time to interview the rest of the crew?

To define maritime operating differential subsidies as “courtesy of the taxpayers” is misleading. We need to maintain some form of sea-lift capability if we expect our armed forces to be taken seriously. There are only three ways to do it--use a partially subsidized U.S.-flagged commercial fleet crewed by American seamen, use a fully subsidized military fleet, or use a foreign-flagged fleet crewed by seamen with questionable loyalties. The first choice is more cost efficient than the second, and the third should only be considered by the foolhardy and the naive.

ANTHONY POPLAWSKI

United States Merchant Marine

Wilmington