In 1969 the war in Vietnam was going strong, one of the military strategies was to drop lots of bombs, did you ever wonder how the bombs moved from the US to Vietnam? If you have then the story of the SS Badger State will interest you. The Badger State was a merchant marine cargo ship which transported materials across the Pacific. The story of the ship was written by William Benedetto whose book Sailing into the Abyss – A true story of Extreme Heroism on the High Seas published by Citadel Press, NY, 2005. The story of the ship is it was on a regular voyage except for two thing: the cargo was bombs and the Pacific was not rolling waves on a leisurely day, if you ever seen a movie such as George Clooney’s The Perfect Wave, you will have some idea of what type of conditions they were facing. The waves were pushing the boat up the angle of incline and combined with carrying bombs – the bombs would eventually move around. It seemed your average package had more packing material around it, than the bombs. As the waves rolled the ship, the pallets broke and the crew tried to fix it with whatever was on the ship. The story is how the crew work for days to secure the cargo and hoped for the calmer seas that the forecasters said were to be found. If there were 10 foot swells, the ship would have a chance to dock at an island and fix the hold. The sea did not co-operate and eventually a bomb blew up which lead to abandon ship. Two of the results of the efforts of the people who live and those who died with the ship – the merchant marine groups were officially established and cargos were better packed before they left the port.

In between the many stories of the people of the Badger State, the author takes the reader into the world of merchant marines – the ships and other shipping disasters both in war and in peace time. The book is both educational and a terrific story of trying to stay afloat. One of the stories is prior to the civil war, the shipping building industry was primarily owned by Americans, due to increased insurance rates the ships quickly became foreign owned. While there is still a shipping industry, insurance rates play a factor in where the ship is registered.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, hopefully owning the stock of a company will never put you at risk of your life. The story of the SS Badger State is the story of the “working man” being recognized for the work they do to ensure operations run smoothly. While the focus of annual reports is a focus on the executive of the company, it takes a lot of good people doing work everyday to keep companies working well through all kinds of events. It was a testament to the training, work ethic, and desire of the men to do everything possible to keep the bombs from moving and to keep going. It would have been easy to have a defeatist attitude with such high odds against the crew. For dividend stock buyers the payoff of is the continuing dividends over the years to increase your total return – you have to have a positive attitude of what life will be like over the coming years.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.