World War II Service
The Detroit draft board initially classified Greenberg as 4F for "flat feet". Rumors that he had bribed the board and concern that he would be likened to Jack Dempsey, who had received negative publicity for failure to serve in World War I, led Greenberg to be reexamined, and he was found fit to serve.
Drafted in 1940, the first American League player to be drafted, his salary was cut from $55,000 ($912,000 today) a year to $21 ($300 today) a month. Greenberg was not bitter, however, stating, "I made up my mind to go when I was called. My country comes first." After most of the 1941 season, however, he was honorably discharged when the United States Congress released men aged 28 years and older from service, being released on December 5, 1941, two days before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Greenberg re-enlisted and volunteered for service in the United States Army Air Forces, again the first major league player to do so. He graduated from Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the USAAF. He eventually served overseas in the China-Burma-India Theater, scouting locations for B-29 bomber bases. Promoted to captain, Greenberg served 45 months, the longest of any major league player.
Read more about this topic: Hank Greenberg
Famous quotes containing the words world, war and/or service:
“Who can wonder that the world is known
So well by man, since himself is one?
The same composure in his form is shewed,
And man’s the little image of the God.”
—Marcus Manilius (10 B.C.–A.D. 30)
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
—Bible: Hebrew Isaiah, 2:4.
The words reappear in Micah 4:3, and the reverse injunction is made in Joel 3:10 (”Beat your plowshares into swords ...”)
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)