Walter Mosley, author of many works of fiction in a variety
of genres — my favorites are
the Easy Rawlins novels set in post WW II L.A. — posts a moving and heartfelt
eulogy for Muhammad Ali for the NY Times. It starts with the impact on Mosley
of Ali's refusal to be drafted for the War in Vietnam. Mosley remembers saying
to a friend he would not serve in Vietnam because he felt "no hatred
toward or fear of the Vietnamese people.” When he thought for a second about
where those words came from, he realized they had come from Muhammad Ali, who
had said much the same when refusing to be drafted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/opinion/muhammad-ali-shaped-my-life.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
Perhaps Ali could have turned service in Vietnam into a sort
of performance or spectacle. He might have entertained the troops without
actually ever seeing battle. He wouldn't have been the first celebrity/celebrity
athlete to do a tour of duty that
way. But he didn't take an easy way out. His made his refusal to be drafted into
a powerful statement of principle that inspired Mosley and confirmed many of us
in the anti-war movement.
Ali paid a huge price that has not been properly adjudged.
Banned from boxing at age 25 and not licensed to box again until he was 29, he
was barred from his sport at the height of his excellence. When he was admitted
back into the ring, he wasn't the same fighter. The older Ali had lost the
speed that had made him so distinctive, giving him the ability to dodge and
slip punches, to hit while not getting hit. Now he would hit and hit back
harder, take punishment and punish back, nothing elegant, nothing like sweet science
about it.
I remember seeing one of his bouts with Joe Frazier and
thinking I was done with boxing, never wanted to expose myself to it again. This
was just two powerful men punishing each other to the utmost until one of them,
Frazier, simply could not take any more. It wasn't a knockout; it was hell doth
have limits, I’m done.
Frazier would say about that fight that he hit with punches
that would have brought down a barn. Ali famously remarked that fighting Frazier
that time was the hardest thing he would ever have to do next to dying. Yet Ali
kept fighting, getting hit and hitting back.
Why did he get Parkinson's? Isn't the answer obvious? It's
because he really didn't escape Vietnam; he lost his war against the war in
Vietnam. If he had not been deprived of his best years, he would never have suffered the damage
incurred he did to prove he was still the best man.
To me, your argument that the punishment Frazier took in that one fight caused his dementia is tenuous, and that it only happened because of his being out for those five years is far-fetched. He could have been in the ring the whole time and still probably would have gotten dementia. Rope-a-dope was a choice to take more punches, many more.
ReplyDeleteHe was a hero for standing up for what was right. Isn't that enough? Blaming his dementia on the war isn't really necessary. Any boxer is at huge risk of becoming demented, as we know, probably more so than any football player.
I'm just grateful I or my kids didn't have to be drafted, glad there was a Muhammad Ali.
Best, Steve