” ... his chronic, debilitating back pain, CNN reports. ... which stretch back to his football-playing days at Harvard”
The Kennedy Myth. For a long time his faithful retinue maintained that JFK’s back pain was attributable to the PT 109 sinking and his stalwart attempts to save his crew. Now it’s football.
John Kennedy had back pain and other serious physical problems well before college. As a young man, cortisone shots were the only thing that allowed him to move about. Before those he was pretty much strapped to a board. He endured back pain for the rest of his life but was functional. He also suffered with Addison’s disease and other ailments that required daily injections and medicines from his own Dr. Morell. John was a frail, sickly lad while his older brother Joe was heir to the Kennedy crime family throne.
But John was given the Navy Cross, after losing his motionless patrol boat to a Japanese ship that rammed it in half, instead of the court martial his commander demanded because obviously Lt. Kennedy was not running a tight boat.
So then big brother Joe volunteered for a (hare-brained) mission: flying a bomber that was so packed with explosives that it blew up on take-off, killing the entire crew.
`Jack’ reluctantly signed on to carry the torch, because father Joe could be very persuasive, although he was more interested in ladies, one a Nazi femme fatale, kibosh put by Pop.
But it’s CNN, so it must be true: JFK was a football hero too; junior varsity with a lot of bench splinters but details, schmetails.
If his back was so messed up, I’m surprised he got into the military at all.