The Youngest Medal Recipient

When I was 12, it was a big deal that my parents would drop me off at the bus stop by the old courthouse in Towson on a Friday or Saturday night, and my buddy Bob and I would go to the Civic Center to see a hockey game, get a Giant, shake and fries afterwards at Gino's across the street, and come back to bucolic Towson around midnight.

And now, as evening lays its shawl across the shoulders of my life, as Johnny Cash once sang, I don't know if I would take a bus downtown again. For one thing, the city is not as safe as it used to be, and for another, we tend to be more intrepid at 12 than at whatever I am now.  Which is 68.

And even at my 12, I don't know that I could have done what Calvin Leon Graham did at his 12.

Calvin was 11, actually, when Pearl Harbor was attacked and the U.S. was plunged into World War II. His father was dead, and his mother had married a man who did not have time for or interest in young Calvin, so with a forged letter of permission, a faked notary stamp, and some time spent learning to make his voice sound deeper, Calvin dressed up in his older brother's clothes and joined the US Navy in August, 1942, after turning 12.

Following boot camp, he was assigned to a seaman's berth on the USS South Dakota as it  sailed from Pearl Harbor that October 16.  Ten days later, Graham found himself in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands as a loader for a 40 mm anti-aircraft gun. In November the South Dakota was in the Battle of Guadalcanal. Graham was hit by shell fragments but still continued to help rescue others aboard the ship, which was hit by at least 42 missiles from 3 enemy ships.

The South Dakota and her crew were awarded two Navy Unit Commendations for their heroism, and young Graham was given the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

Severely damaged, the South Dakota returned to the East Coast under the name "Battleship X," which she was given to lead the enemy to think she was lost in battle. While in port, Graham got word that his grandmother had died, and he jumped ship to go to Texas for her funeral, was caught, and put in the brig for desertion, serving three months before his sister threatened to tell the story of his status to the newspapers.

He was stripped of his medals and dishonorably discharged in May, 1943.

The rest of his life was spent unhappily, it would seem. He joined the Marines (at age 17) but fell off a pier and broke his back, and had to fight for years to get VA medical benefits and a clean service record. Not until 1978 was he given an honorable discharge, and all his medals were restored to him save the Purple Heart by President Carter. In later years, he was given medical benefits, and his wife was given the Purple Heart in his memory two years after he died in 1992 from heart failure.

Graham later said that his biggest mistake was in admitting to the South Dakota's legal officer that he was, in fact, 12 years of age, a fact that hastened his dismissal from the service.

That officer was none other than R. Sargent Shriver, vice-presidential candidate in 1972, father of Maria Shriver, chairman of the board of Special Olympics, and the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom himself.

I try to imagine any 12-year-old passing ammo in the middle of a naval battle, and I can't. I think Calvin Graham deserved better than fate brought him.