Boxers in World Wars/Vietnam

i can't imagine there were too many 36 year old privates with recently damaged backs in airborne(or whatever anyone else called them) history

carpentier and siki were in ww1

 

Hitler didn't draft Schmeling,and he never sent him on any suicide missions.
When Schmeling came to the US he was an apologist for the Nazi party and denied there was any ill treatment of Jews in Germany ,it's a matter of,public record.

He later recanted this position and demonstrated he had no racial bias hiding two Jewish boys in1938, and by becoming a lifelong friend of Louis , aiding him financially and helping to pay for his funeral.
Schmeling was in a very invidious position in pre- war Germany and conducted himself as honourably as he could under the circumstances.

 

Schmeling no doubt was no longer flavour of the month after losing to Louis, but he didn't go on any suicide missions,that's my point. And he did meet and have tea with Hitler.
Carpentier was a decorated pilot. Siki disposed of the problem of some prisoners by lobbing a grenade into their bunker. Both were awarded the Medaille Millitaire and the Croix de Guerre.

 

agreed, my point was that not many older, damaged men get picked to jump out of airplanes when you can send a 20 year old.

I don't know about german paratroopers, the us(like band of brothers) were specialist units who took the best available.(not sure if elite unit is the right term)

 

Correct but that doesn't constitute a suicide mission does it?

 

i never said that, i doubt they would send a unit on a suicide mission to kill a man they could have had killed in his bed. It was just a comment on the likelyhood of him being amongst the oldest, most physically worn privates in the short history of mass airborne attacks

 

You never said that but Bill B did.

 

Jesse Ferguson boxed in the military and "reportedly" served during the vietnam war. But being born in 1957, that would have made him around 17 years old by 1974 when most of the action had died down, so I don't know.

 

U.S. combat was done by 1972. He may have joined during the end of the Vietnam era ie. before Saigon fell in 1975.

 

I'll bet that's what it was then. In 1972, Ferguson would have been what, 15 years old? No way he saw any action.