NEW YORK -- Calvin Graham was a 12-year-old hero whose decorations include the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart and he was thanked by his grateful country with disgrace, imprisonment and terrible abuse.
The story that CBS tells in 'Too Young The Hero,' to air Sunday, March 27, 9-11 p.m. Eastern time, is too incredible to be believed except that it is true.
It is ironic that Ricky Schroder, child star of 'The Champ' and teen star of the sitcom 'Silver Spoons,' takes on an adult role by playing a 12-year-old -- and he does it convincingly and movingly.
Those who are old enough will remember the patriotism that swept the country after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; those who grew up in the Vietnam era may have trouble believing it. Different war, different times, it almost seems like a different country.
The story begins with Calvin Graham reporting with sealed orders at a naval air station. In his blues and white cap he is scrubbed, cheerful and hoping to be assigned to a destroyer. Instead he is thrown in the stockade, beaten and treated with harsh contempt and he cannot even find out why he is there.
He learns the charge is desertion, but no one will listen when he tries to explain that all he was guilty of was lying about his age when he enlisted.
Through flashbacks, interspersed with the desperation of his life in prison -- which includes rape and other brutalities -- the television film tell his story. And it is one to make you cringe.
Graham was only 11 on the 'day of infamy' -- one of four children of a helpless mother and drunken, abusive stepfather. His older brother enlisted at age 14. When Cal was 12 he faked the necessary documents about his age and enlisted in the Navy.
He went through boot camp, was shipped out to Pearl Harbor, and assigned to the battleship South Dakota where he was a loader on a 40 millimeter gun crew.
He went through several campaigns, the most devastating of which was off Guadalcanal, where he was wounded, helped a medic save a number of injured sailors and even took part -- although he did not have to -- in a burial detail that involved pulling dead men from a shattered hold.
As a sidelight, the officer in charge of the 40 millimeters was Sargeant Shriver, a man the real Graham remembers with great respect.
When the Navy learns his age, Graham begs to remain in the service.
Instead he is sent to the stockade.
The power of this film is in the contrast between the shining innocence and patriotism of Graham's war service and the horror of his unjust imprisonment.
What happened to Graham could not have occurred it he had been granted the protection of the Constitution he was fighting to defend - even by the military, even in wartime.
Apparently the United States is not a country that makes amends readily. It was not until 1978 that President Carter restored some of Graham's medals and granted him an honorable discharge from the Navy. Veterans benefits from World War II are still being denied him.
He did get his Bronze Star and several other decorations, 'But they didn't give me back my Purple Heart or my presidential citation that Mr. Roosevelt gave me,' Graham said in a telephone interview from his Fort Worth, Texas, home.
Also important are the veteran's benefits because he is ill, cannot work and is confined to a wheel chair or must walk with crutches.
Following his discharge from the Navy -- technically it was a cancellation of enlistment, which did not entitle him to GI benefits - he worked at a series of naval shipyards from which he was fired when a fingerprint check revealed his age.
He married at 14, settled in Dallas and became night manager for a taxi company. In 1950, when the Dallas draft board did not recognize his prior military service, he enlisted in the Marines -- 'all the action was in the Marine Corps.' He was badly hurt in an accident and eventually discharged.
Thinking back, he said the treatment he received in the stockade was worse than shown in the television movie, which he called 99 percent accurate. He was beaten daily, he said, adding:
'I would just sit down in a corner of the cell after 14 hours of harsh and unusual treatment and think, What did I do to deserve this? They had me believing I was some kind of criminal, that maybe I didn't understand the seriousness of fraudulent enlistment.'
Graham says now that he thinks he was put in the stockade because Navy rules dictate you must be 14 to be discharged. He was only 12 and, he believes, they just didn't know what to do with him.
For the last 12 years, Graham has been writing to every congressman and senator, as well as the president, asking for their support. He also has written to President Reagan.
'He never answered my letters,' Graham said. 'I don't think he ever sees them. A bill has been introduced in Congress. It's not all that much money involved, but it is to me. It just doesn't get out on the floor for a vote. If it did and they turned me down, well, I'd be satisfied.'
