Barney Ross

The Frail-Waisted Champion 

 

In February, 1943, a troopship pulled in on America's West Coast. The ship was jammed with soldiers overcome by emotion. They were not "high-point" men coming home at the end of a war; they were badly battered and wounded men returning to their homes because they were too shattered to fight on. As they began that happy, indescribable walk down the gangway to touch American soil for the first time in many agonizing months and years, sentimentality surrounded all the men.

And then a wonderful thing happened. A stooped, gray-headed, slim soldier walked safely to shore, got on his knees, kissed the earth and broke into tears. The other GI's tried not to look and they attempted to control their emotions. Some did not succeed and one could hear choked sobs in that crowd of wounded men who had been fighting the Japanese in the unknown islands of the Pacific.

The act of this old-looking soldier was a symbol of their thankfulness to be back home. But there was more to it than that. The soldier was not an anonymous, emotional GI; he had been a famous American before he went off to war. He was one of America's outstanding athletes. Now he was back - tired, scarred with wounds, sick with malaria and a hero of the battle of Guadalcanal.

When American newspapers splashed the picture of