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Community The Veteran Piece Time Poulin arranges pieces of sails that he made for his miniature ships. Poulin is a retired Coast Guard World War II veteran who keeps his love for the sea alive by building ships in bottles in his home in Nahant, Mass. An Old Salt projects and founded many of the national and state parks in America today. The job took him to Colorado helping build dams. He loved it. “It was like a kid playing with mud,” he said. And a kid he was. To get into the CCC, boys had to be 17 years old. He was only 16 so he forged his birth certificate to make him a year older. The CCC paid him $30 a month. He kept $5 and the remaining $25 was sent home to his parents in Lowell, Mass. He said back then there was no welfare and people would grab any job available like sweeping streets or picking up garbage. When Poulin was 10 years old, he and his friends walked the gutters and collected tobacco from cigarette butts to sell to teenagers for pennies. He was paid more than pennies when he joined the Coast Guard in 1941. Between 1942 and 1945 he served aboard the USS Leonard Wood, a 535-foot transport ship. Military life supplied a steady flow of camaraderie, food and paychecks that were once scant. Despite the barrage of new conveniences, he found himself in the middle of a world war. The Leonard Wood carried landing craft that were loaded with tanks, trucks and troops and sent to shore during invasions. During battle, Coast Guardsmen aboard the Leonard Wood were deployed as crew inside the landing craft or as gunners on the ship. In the three years aboard, Poulin did it all, narrowly escaping death several times. During one battle a group of enemy airplanes swooped in to attack. One plane approached Leonard Wood low and fast. Poulin pointed two leathery fingers square at his face. “I swore it was going to hit me in the eyes.” Instead it buzzed over his head, attacked the ship next to the Leonard Wood, and killed every man aboard. “War is very strange like that,” he said. “I think it’s all about luck.” Even now, more than half a century later, he still seems to have luck on his side. One of the nearly 400 ships in bottles he’s made was recently selected for exhibition at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. Surely he appreciates the honor but probably not as much as the salty air that filters through his window. 18 Coast Guard — Issue 4, 2008