"We were just happy to know that we were doing a job," William says of his service in the Merchant Marines. He was born in Ironwood, a small town on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. After finishing high school in 1942, he joined the Merchant Marines, graduated from radio school, and then served on a liberty ship, the SS Leo J. Duster. His first sail was in the summer of 1943, a journey of six months across the Atlantic and through the Suez Canal. Two voyages to Murmansk, he says, were his most dangerous. After the second voyage, he was in Scotland on VE Day. "We went into Glasgow and we danced the streets all night long," he recalls. VJ Day found him at sea between New York and Norfolk. William left the service in October of 1947. Cities Service Oil Company hired his as a warehouseman in Bossier City. William stayed with the company for thirty-six years. He still works as a salesman three days a week.