 However, they were formally considered volunteers and not members of the military.Walter Winchell, the famous newspaper columnist and radio commentator, and columnist Westbrook Pegler both described the National Maritime Union and the merchant seamen generally as draft dodgers, criminals, riffraff, Communists, and other derogatory names.It came to a head in the middle of the war with the writing of a column in the New York World-Telegram by Pegler, who alleged that merchant seamen refused to work on Sundays per union rules, causing sick USMC servicemen to unload their own supplies in an incident off Guadalcanal.