Following are more photos and tales from retiree Phil Rosenstein of Corpus Christi, Texas, who has been a frequent contributor to the LOG.Rosenstein writes: “Sometime during the 1960s, I relieved Bosun Pete Brusasco on board the Volunteer State, a States Marine Victory ship. Pete lived in Portland, Ore. and invited me to his home whenever I was in the area. Pete had a business that he worked at in between ships—retrieving logs from the bottom of the Willamette River. Yes, logs don’t always float. There were a lot of logs that sank to the bottom.”
One photo is of Pete, leaning against one of the square logs he pulled up.
The other photo was taken of Rosenstein in 1967 when he was bosun aboard the Boise Victory, owned and operated by Keystone Shipping Co.
“We made several trips into Vietnam during the war. The U.S. Army brought 30- and 50-caliber machine guns on board with soldiers to operate them. One soldier taught me how to use the machine gun and let me pose for my picture with it on the stern.
“There were many ships at anchor in Saigon. Every morning scuba divers would check the bottom of our ship for mines. The Viet Cong would sometimes swim up the Saigon River and put magnetic mines under the hulls of U.S. merchant ships.”
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