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December 26, 2006
Gerald R. Ford, 1913-2006
With the death of Pres. Ford today, I thought it was appropriate to remember him a little differently from the way he'd been portrayed in the popular media when he was in office.
Saturday Night Live got a lot of mileage from a couple of falls Pres. Ford took, earning him a reputation as being a bumbling, uncoordinated stumble-bum nincompoop, spoofed most famously by Chevy Chase, who would fall off a ladder, destroy a podium, tumble off the presidential stage, then grin moronically and announce, "Live from New York!"
On the gridiron during his time at the University of Michigan during the early 1930s.
The irony is that there may never have been a more gifted natural athlete occupying the Oval Office. According to his obituary, "Ford played center on the University of Michigan's 1932 and 1933 national champion football teams. He got professional offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but chose to study law at Yale, working his way through as an assistant varsity football coach and freshman boxing coach."
And this photo is one of those interesting moments when a man is captured on film, years before he achieves the station in life fate -- and destiny -- have in store.
Pres. Ford was a Navy officer during World War II, killing time aboard ship in a game of basketball played on one of his aircraft carrier's elevators, as the crew looked on, unaware that the tall towhead getting air while fighting for the ball would someday be the Commander in Chief.
Lt. Ford enjoys a party ashore with his fellow officers from the USS Monterey in 1944.
His service during the war included participation in a number of campaigns and invasions -- and a chilling moment that almost cost him his life, detailed in this account from the Navy's official web site.
Ford was sent in May 1943 to the pre-commissioning detachment for a new light aircraft carrier, USS Monterey (CVL-26) at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey. From the ship's commissioning on 17 June 1943 until the end of December 1944, Ford served as the assistant navigator, Athletic Officer, and antiaircraft battery officer on board Monterey.
While he was on board, Monterey participated in many actions in the Pacific with the Third and Fifth Fleets during the fall of 1943 and in 1944. In 1943, the carrier helped secure Makin Island in the Gilberts, and participated in carrier strikes against Kavieng, New Ireland in 1943.
During the spring of 1944, Monterey supported landings at Kwajalein and Eniwetok and participlated in carrier strikes in the Marianas, Western Carolines, and northern New Guinea, as well as in the Battle of Philippine Sea. After overhaul, from September to November 1944, aircraft from Monterey launched strikes against Wake Island, participated in strikes in the Philippines and Ryukus, and supported the landings at Leyte and Mindoro.
Although the ship was not damaged by the Japanese forces, Monterey was one of several ships damaged by the typhoon, which hit Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet on 18-19 December 1944. The Third Fleet lost three destroyers and over 800 men during the typhoon.
Monterey was damaged by a fire which was started by several of the ship's aircarft tearing loose from their cables and colliding during the storm. During the storm, Ford narrowly missed being a casualty himself.
After Ford left his battle station on the bridge of the ship in the early morning of 18 December, the ship rolled twenty-five degrees which caused Ford to lose his footing and slide toward the edge of the deck. The two inch steel ridge around the edge of the carrier slowed him enough so he could roll and twisted into the catwalk below the deck. As he later stated, "I was lucky; I could have easily gone overboard."
He proved to be good man who infuriated many Americans when he pardoned disgraced ex-President Nixon, an act that Ford believed was necessary to end the national trauma arising from the Watergate scandal. That act also resulted in an even worse tragedy: his loss in the presidential campaign of 1976, ushering in the four-year national hairshirt, aka the Carter presidency.
Blech.
Ninety-three years is a good run; we should all live so long -- and so well.
Rest in peace.
Posted by Mike Lief at December 26, 2006 09:27 PM
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Comments
Thank you for this.
Posted by: Thin Ice, Sr. at December 27, 2006 07:11 AM
President Ford's middle name was Rudolph, So that would be Gerald R. Ford, not Gerald M. Ford.
Just sayin.
Posted by: GV at December 27, 2006 05:29 PM
Thanks, GV.
I had Richard M. Nixon on the brain.
Posted by: Mike Lief at December 27, 2006 07:13 PM
np. May he rest in peace.
Posted by: GV at December 27, 2006 07:54 PM
Great story Mike. President Ford took an awful lot of grief for that pardon, but under the circumstances anyone elese would have done the same thing. Without it, the country would have dragged through months of unnecessary media drama. The guy had balls -- a rare trait indeed for a politician.
Posted by: Kamal at December 27, 2006 07:57 PM