Mohamed Ali

In the South, maybe other regions, we have a tendency to make national figures into “Saints” when they die. I liked Mohammed Ali. He never took himself too seriously and was entertaining and in later life wore the mantle of an illness that seemed unfair. 

Ali reminds me of a Lieutenant we had in Vietnam. The Army, for all its faults, is pretty colorblind. The Lieutenant I am thinking about was black, assigned to lead a platoon (30 or so soldiers) of rednecks and hillbillies: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, NC, etc. At the time nobody thought anything about it. We were trying to stay alive in a sorry war and there was no time for anybody to contemplate their navel about an African American Lieutenant in charge of a bunch of Southern white boys. (In Nam, white southern boys were the majority of combat soldiers, mainly because they were poor). The poor always fight America’s wars. The other youngsters their age had deferments and were in college protesting the war or getting laid while these redneck kids were dying, supposedly fighting for their country.

I once asked the Platoon Sergeant: “How did this work out with the  Lieutenant?”

He said, “Everybody just likes the LT,” as they called him. My suspicion was that the LT was simply a good leader and leadership is truly colorblind. Ali was like that. People just liked him. I did. Want to make him a Saint. Fine with me.