This piece will cite four young men whose personal confrontations with the establishment resulted in their unwarranted condemnation, from which all but one eventually emerged victorious. Our backdrop in each case is the U.S. military draft system, with three pertinent to World War II and the fourth to Vietnam.
Out initial situation involves Lew Ayres, a vintage era film actor. His two most renowned performances, as an ill-fated German soldier in All Quiet on the Western Front, a first world war epic, then a budding physician in the Dr. Kildare series, had influenced his personal beliefs considerably. Accordingly, in the early 1940s, when other chaps were being whisked off daily to army camps, thanks to the universal draft, he declared himself a conscientious objector.
Those not of sufficient age to have been on the scene during the World War II years must be made aware that individual religion-inspired leanings toward pacifism at all costs was then deemed tantamount to cowardice in the public eye. Anyone unwilling to shoulder a rifle and march bravely to the front became an instant outcast. Thanks to Hitler and the fellows with the funny eyes from the Far East, national patriotism had swelled to a fever pitch. Allowing a person to exercise his basic human rights, legal though they were, couldn’t be the least bit tolerated by the overwhelming multitude. “Conscientious Objector” and “Draft Dodger” had become synonymous terms.
After committing Ayres to a special camp for those “hateful creatures”, the War Department in its supposed magnanimity soon acceded to his earlier request for Army Medical Corps service. His tour of duty took him to the Pacific Theater and New Guinea.
Still bearing the stigma from wartime days, Lew returned to Hollywood, where he played a starring role in the classic 1948 film Johnny Belinda, for which he received an Oscar nomination. Fortunately, his memorable performance helped the presumed yellow streak down his back to fade a little. He then managed to carry on his acting career quite successfully. Although still tainted somewhat in the eyes of the diehard tsk-tskers, he came out a winner in the end.
Our second illustrative case concerns another young man who worked in the entertainment industry, but never so prominently as Ayres. His name was Stuart Groshong, and he hailed from this writer’s home town, a Cleveland, Ohio suburb, hence our familiarity with the situation.
Following high school graduation in 1937, having already become renowned locally for his concert-quality singing voice, he began making downtown night club and radio station performances under the name Clyde Stuart, and shortly afterward Stuart Wade.
During the years immediately subsequent to Pearl Harbor, Stu became the regular male vocalist on a Sunday afternoon musical program, in company with a girl known by the stage name of Dorothy Brooks, plus a supporting studio band. The show enjoyed reasonable local popularity.
On a particular midweek afternoon, when the cast assembled to rehearse for the coming Sunday presentation, Mr. Wade was advised that one of his renditions would be a song entitled Any Bonds Today?, a patriotic number urging folks to shell out dollars for war savings securities, a most popular pastime in that period. On the basis of his professed pacifism, Stuart humbly declined, feeling the subject matter to be inconsistent with his personal beliefs. The reward for following his conscience was to be summarily fired by the station bigwigs. Draft dodgers simply couldn’t be tolerated as radio program performers.
It took precious little time for the word to spread throughout the suburban community where the Groshong family had long called home. Like Lew Ayres on a national scale, Stu was quickly condemned to sack cloth and ashes from a local standpoint.
With our subsequent knowledge of this man’s affairs being rather skimpy, we can merely attest to the fact that he too ended up on the winning end, but to a much more modest degree than had the actor. Apparently, the military brass never remanded young Wade to a conscientious objector camp, because he readily turned up as the male singer with Bobby Byrne’s nationally-known dance orchestra. Not long thereafter, he joined the relatively prestigious Freddy Martin outfit, with which he remained for the rest of the war.
When the big band craze drew to an abrupt halt circa 1946, Stuart tended to fade from the show business scene, at least in terms of prominence. Aside from a lead role in one of those inane horror films which became so prevalent in the latter 1940s, this one named The Monster from the Ocean Floor, plus a couple spot television commercials later on, we don’t recall seeing or hearing about him further. At least, however, he had managed to rise to a nationwide performing level, where the hometown “shame” didn’t follow him.
Another lad from this writer’s same home burg was Les Schenck, several years junior to Stuart Groshong. Raised by working class parents, he distinguished himself among fellow townspeople for his exemplary athletic prowess at the high school level. As a prolific forward passing football tailback, a sterling basketball court ace, and a weight-throwing track squad member, he earned a few years of local heroism.
Les’ case doesn’t involve his being branded a (ptui!) conscientious objector, but a dirty draft dodger nonetheless, for a different reason. The military recruiters kept repeatedly turning him down, due to the presence of a hernia, all the way to war’s end.
Under normal circumstances, young Schenck could have easily shrugged his shoulders and shuffled off back home. He certainly wasn’t the only fellow around town to be declared 4-F. However, he didn’t manage to dwell in modest anonymity.
A certain local woman, who perhaps deserved the label of Champion Busybody, wasted no time in launching a verbal smear campaign against this chap for allegedly faking a physical disability, just to avoid serving his country whose need had become so critical. She stood upon a totally unfounded premise that anybody fit enough to achieve athletic brilliance obviously possessed sufficient capability to battle a hated foe. She apparently deemed the draft board’s examining doctors as lacking adequate diagnostic skills.
Fortunately for Les, the slings and arrows from this vicious-minded person gradually abated after war’s end. He was able to go on with his life, albeit far too short. Unlike Ayres and Wade, though, he never came out as a winner of any sorts – instead, only an unjustly slandered but ordinary person with a common physical deficiency.
For our final episode, we jump forward two decades and focus on a man who attained far greater worldwide recognition than even Lew Ayres. Born Cassius Clay and hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, this chap adopted the Muslim name Muhammad Ali, and fought his way from the International Olympics up to the heavyweight boxing pinnacle.
Generally considered to rate among the very best his sport has ever seen, he proved this point again and again by his feats in the ring. However, certain obstacles unrelated to athletics soon faced him.
The U.S. military had been busy making a collective ass of itself by waging a war against “world communism” in Vietnam. The compulsory draft still remained in effect, and the Champ’s number eventually came up.
Once more, the conscientious objection factor reared its head. Although no longer bearing quite the supposed disgrace of the second world war era, the situation had a new twist. Muhammad Ali wasn’t sticking to his guns as a Christian, but rather a Muslim. Good Lord! Blessed Jesus! This could be nothing short of intolerable. Besides, the man happened to be black, and had been aggressively campaigning for improved civil rights – a fairly unpopular cause in those days.
Like Ayres and Wade, the erstwhile Mr. Clay felt the ceiling crash down on him. Not only did the legal proceedings find him convicted on a draft evasion felony charge, but the boxing commission arbitrarily stripped him of his heavyweight championship title. His choice of religion, his color, his oft-resented arrogance, and his attacks on racial prejudice had supposedly justified these verdicts in the eyes of the tsk-tsker community.
This case has a favorable ending, though. The U.S. Supreme Court soon tossed out the compulsory draft for quite valid reasons, and Ali was exonerated. However, he could only regain his top-of-the-heap ring status by fighting for it – which he did in a most convincing manner.
A man of sound truth if ever one existed, despite his exaggerated arrogance, Muhammad Ali deserved the status he regained by virtue of his masterful skills.
In summing up this manifold case set and its final results, we might well conclude by saying that three final winners out of four ain’t bad.
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