Atlanta Daily World

Sure, the Army coddled star athletes were drafted into the service. But a case can be made out for such coddling.

The House Armed Services Committee could better spend its time investigating the coddling of chair-borne Army officers, some of whom went through two world wars never even got to a port of embarkation.

The Sugar Ray Robinson case stank. Two hours before he was to board a boat bound for Europe with the Joe Louis troupe, the welterweight champion left the port of embarkation and took a taxicab for Harlem.

He turned up a couple of days later in an Army hospital, claiming he had had a case of amnesia—he forgot to catch the boat. But an Army board of inquiry cleared him of all charges.

He was later given a "Section 8" discharge on the ground that he was unadaptable to the Army. The report of the board of inquiry justified such an inquiring—and I wager that it was some of the findings of this board which Brigadier General H. B. Powell, deputy chief of staff, G-1 (personnel), discussed behind closed doors with the Hess subcommittee which inquired into the coddling of professional athletes and entertainers by the Army.

Robinson was a member of the Louis troupe, which toured Army camps in this country. I visited Camp Lee, Virginia, one night, to watch this troupe in action. They