re: Muhammed Ali... American Hero?

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Meh, thousands of middle class people were doing anything and everything to dodge the draft for the Vietnam war. That was a shitshow, and not comparable for responding to your county's call for WW2.

Going to community college, finding some medical exemption, joining the reserves and national guard....Everyone was trying to avoid serving in that war. Only the poor ended up going because they didn't have the resources to find ways out.

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This.

My dad took an extra year of a drafting class he really had no interest in thinking the war would be over. It was not and he got drafted. May have saved his life. One year later and he was selected as a hospital corpsman. Spent 18 months in Japan learning how to smoke and drink beer and sake. Also learning that Japanese people still hated us.

Ali did not turn his back when his country needed him "the most". He was not needed for a meat grinder. And I believe he truly had his beliefs and convictions. He probably would have been used in the USO for morale and also for recruitment. And the recruitment of black men. Also for compliance with the draft. He was not going to be "in the shite". As I have heard on every Vietnam war movie.

If they were going to just hand him a rifle and stick him in the infantry it would have been a ridiculous injustice. The better thing he could do for his country would be to box. Give the country something "normal" to distract them.

I hope he would have been nothing more than a dog and pony show. And I do believe he wanted no part of legitimizing the Vietnam war.


If we were talking about a Ted Williams not becoming a pilot and dodging the draft in WW2 then you would have a story.

How old is the OP? I am 43 years old and can not wrap my head around what the country must have been like.

Hero could be changed to sports hero. Using the term hero is something Ali shied away from. Especially after retirement. He wasn't pulling people from burning buildings. He DID become an ambassador for boxing and for the U.S. And at times for Muslims. Fortunately as Muslims get crazier and crazier Parkinson's made him quieter and quieter. He did an interview after 9/11 condemning them as Muslims.

And hero is such a personal term. If you pretend to be able to tell people who can and can't be their heroes, you are a delusional a-hole. BUT, if you call someone a hero who is truly not your hero, then you do cheapen the person you refer to and the term itself.

The answer and issue are very complex. I believe that Ali was sincere in his effort to do the right thing. I also respect his stand in refusing to be inducted, despite the fact he would have had boxing exhibitions all around CONUS and a brief overseas boxing exhibition tour during his 12 months in uniform.

And unlike a lot of SJW, he did grow up in a segregated, institutionally racist (however benign we might think that is with the benefit of hindsight) country and still represented the nation at the Olympics. The fact that he explicitly turned his back on what that represents, the promise and potential the country had/has and specifically embraced a similarly racist and segregationist philosophy (The NOI and the KKK have shockingly similar beliefs, with just the skin colors reversed) tarnishes that to a degree.

But he was naïve to allow himself to be used by the Nation of Islam and probably agreed with that sentiment during the last 40 years or so of his life. He was also a generous philanthropist. For all his talk of family values, he was a serial adulterer. But, he was also a doting father and good to his children.

A man of many talents and many contradictions. He was the most famous living person in history, at least before the internet age - as even in the 1970s, there was virtually no village or community of human beings that would not have recognized him if he visited.

American hero? Probably tough to label him in this way. If you take his 1996 appearance at Atlanta as an embrace of his own Olympic legacy - maybe he rethought that. People change their opinions. Perhaps the changes in the country from the time he became an adult until he became an old man softened his views.

For those who label him a coward for declining induction - I have to disagree with that. He was willing to stand in front of men like Liston, Frazier, Norton, Foreman and, as a old man (damned near 40 is old for a boxer) Holmes (in Holmes' prime) and this is conclusive proof he was no coward. Despite the fact I was for his opponent in almost every fight, I respect his contributions to the sport of boxing and his gifts as a boxer and showman. He was also willing to work towards the common good with his philanthropic endeavors.

It was an unjust and pointless war And he paid the consequences for his actions.

His association with Malcolm X is the biggest reason I can't call him a hero. A divisive group that hurt the black community by calling for more separation after the death of MLK. Everything was on track with MLK, and then The Nation of Islam destroyed all that positive energy and momentum.

He stood up for his religious beliefs. One of the same principles this country was founded on. You're damn right he was an American hero

Yeah we should just blindly do whatever our government tells us because patriotism

Great boxer but NOT an American hero.

He was one of the greatest athletes of all times.

For some among us, yes...for me, thought never crossed my mind, as that description belongs to Roberto Clemente, for me, Sports hero in the States as he wasn't a native of this nation

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I'm not sure what this means - Stewart insisted on being deployed to theater, despite his superior's reluctance to have a major film star put in harm's way. Even Clark Gable flew 5 combat missions. It was a different time and different war.

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I always think about this when Prince William or Harry are or were doing military shite?

I would not want to serve with someone that famous. You certainly have a walking talking propaganda bullseye in your unit.