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The Tragic History of the U.S. Child Warriors

Khalid Elhassan June 9, 2020 34 min

18. The Navy’s Refusal to Release a Child

Calvin Graham as a child sailor, and revisiting the USS South Dakota as an adult. Imgur

After the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the battered South Dakota sailed to New York City for repairs. While it was docked, Calvin Graham went AWOL to attend his grandmother’s funeral in Texas. That was when Calvin’s mother discovered where her twelve-year-old son had been. She told the Navy, but incredibly, rather than immediately discharge the child, they sent him to the brig as punishment for going AWOL. It was only after Calvin’s sister threatened to go public that the Navy let him go, giving him a dishonorable discharge and confiscating his awards.

Too Young the Hero, a movie about Calvin Graham. Alchetron

It was not until 1977, after writing to Congress and with the approval of President Jimmy Carter, that Calvin’s awards were restored. Except for the Purple Heart, for some reason. His dishonorable discharge was also changed to honorable. In 1988, his story was told in a TV movie, Too Young the Hero, in which Calvin was played by Rick Schroeder.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.