The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of distinction between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.
-- Sir William Francis Butler
The story of a critical but relatively unknown branch of the navy involving some 144,000 men who served in the US Naval Armed Guard. There are 150 first-hand accounts from former guardsmen, as well as historical data telling how the US Naval Armed Guard's 6000 merchant ships transported supplies.