Boyd (5 page)

Pettinato’s son, Frank Jr., first came to the beach at four or five years of age. One of his earliest memories is of his father
talking about John Boyd. And it was for more than John’s abilities as a swimmer. Pettinato had never hired a boy so receptive
to his ideas and beliefs. John soaked up Pettinato’s thoughts, responded to his discipline, and manifested an iron will and
a sense of duty that Pettinato had never before seen in one of his lifeguards. No other man in John’s childhood had as great
an influence on him as Frank Pettinato.

But though he was a star on the beach, John experienced, in his last two years of high school, a mixture of the glory and
achievement he had never known and the pain and embarrassment he had always known. Two incidents in high school left an indelible
mark. The first was when a teacher said to him, “John Boyd, you’ll never be anything but a salesman.” Even though John’s father
had been a salesman, he took the remark as a biting insult; it meant that he was glib and shallow and lacked substance. After
he married, he told his wife that he heard those terrible words every day of his life, that throughout his career he was driven
to prove he was more than a mere salesman.

The second incident was no less powerful. Even though by 1944 the Army was drafting men in their late 30s, Bill, John’s older
brother, was twenty-seven and still at home. Bill had tried jobs as an elevator operator, laborer, and security guard. He
had quit or been fired from every job. He became depressed that he was not one of the hundreds of other young men from Erie
who went away to the war. The family told everyone he could not serve because he had a heart murmur. The truth was something
quite different.

The illness that had been festering for years exploded on Saturday, April 1, 1944, when Bill, with no provocation, struck
his mother. The
next evening he became quite agitated and jumped through a window, cutting his arm and hand so badly that he was taken to
the hospital for stitches. Two people were required to hold him in bed and administer sedatives.

His medical records show that on Monday he said he had radar in his teeth. He told hospital workers, “I want to go to see
the Pope. I’d turn Catholic if he could help me. I want to go by the way of India.” Later that day he complained of a terrible
headache and said, “I want to see a doctor. I’m begging for mercy. You have me cornered.” Various sedatives were administered
and then he was admitted to Warren State Hospital, a mental institution east of Erie. He died there May 3 and was buried in
a single plot in the Erie Cemetery. His death certificate says he died after a one-day bout with terminal bronchopneumonia
brought on by acute catatonic excitement, and that the excitement was due to dementia praecox of more than four years’ duration.
In current parlance, Bill was schizophrenic.

Bill’s medical records indicate that his maternal grandmother and an uncle both had mental problems and that there was a sister
who was “nervous.” Although she is not named, this sister was probably Marion.

After Bill died, representatives from Warren State Hospital came to the Boyd home and asked Elsie if anyone else in the family
had mental illness, if there were anyone else who should be institutionalized. In the 1940s mental illness was an unbearable
stigma. And the shock of people from the mental hospital knocking on her door and asking about mental illness in her family
was almost too much for Elsie. Her children were ordered never to mention the visit to a living soul. If anyone asked, Bill
died of pneumonia. That was it. No one in Erie knew the truth. Even Jack Arbuckle and Chet Reichert said they never knew what
happened to Bill.

At the same time his family was going through such deep personal pain, John was experiencing for the first time in his life
the glory of being a superior athlete, of doing something well. During his junior and senior years, he made five letters in
swimming and water polo. His swim team won the state championship during his senior season. He placed second in the state
in the 220-yard freestyle the same year. He was captain of the water polo team.

No one in his family came to the swim meets. Fathers of other boys sat in the bleachers and cheered. After the meets those
fathers slapped
their sons on the shoulders and congratulated them. John’s victories were solitary and hollow.

John rarely dated in high school. He had little money for dates or social activities. Most of his clothes were still hand-me-downs.
His mother told him none of this mattered. Again and again she stressed that if he worked hard and had integrity that one
day he would rise above those who snickered at his poverty, ridiculed his clothes, and thought they were superior to him.
This would have to be John’s consolation. And he took it to heart. During the summers, he and Chet Reichert would paddle their
canoe across the bay in all kinds of weather, and John would talk constantly of how he had to prove himself out in the world.
He was determined to excel although he did not yet know in what area. He only knew that he had to do something better than
anyone had ever done it before. He had to show people in Erie that he was somebody.

John knew from the time he entered high school that he would be drafted during his senior year, and he did not want to go
into the Army. He was not one to slog out a battle on the ground. On October 30, 1944, when he was a junior in high school,
he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. The terms of his enlistment were for the duration of the war plus six months. He would
not report for duty until near the end of his senior year.

By then he had been hammered on the anvil of life far harder than had most young men his age. Whatever the world had to offer
could be no worse than what he already had endured. He was ready. He stood six feet tall and weighed 164 pounds. His friends
called him “J. B.” His high school annual described him as “the strong silent type,” “stouthearted,” and the “merman.”

John missed one of the major rites of passage: he did not attend his high school graduation. America was at war and on April
16, 1945, he answered the call; he reported for duty with the Air Corps.

On his enlistment papers he listed his civilian occupation as “lifeguard.”

B
OYD
arrived late for his first war.

From Erie he went to basic training at Sheppard Field in Texas, where he applied for the aviation cadet program, a rigid course
whereby young enlisted men train to be a pilot and, upon graduation, are awarded both a commission and the wings of a pilot.
He was rejected because of “low aptitude.”

After basic training he was ordered to Lowry Field in Colorado to be trained as a mechanic for aircraft turrets, but World
War II ended that summer and there no longer was a need for such a specialty. Nevertheless, the inexorable momentum of the
military was still geared to sending young men overseas; Boyd—after months at a staging area in Arizona—went to Japan as part
of the occupation force. He arrived on January 3, 1946, and was assigned to the 8th Squadron of the 49th Fighter Group. His
military records show that less than two months later, in order “to meet service requirements,” he became a swimming instructor.
As a member of the Air Corps Far Eastern Swim Team, Boyd spent his time paddling around indoor heated pools and participating
in swim meets around Japan. It was an inauspicious introduction to war for the man who one day would be considered the ultimate
warrior.

Little else is known of Boyd’s brief service as an enlisted man. About the only thing that has survived is a story he often
told, a story where the John Boyd of fact and the John Boyd of legend begin to merge, the first of the countless “Boyd stories”
that accumulated over the years. The winter of 1945–1946 was particularly cold and wet in Japan. On the former Japanese air
base where Boyd was stationed, officers lived in warm quarters, slept in beds, and ate hot food, while enlisted ranks lived
in tents, slept on the ground, and ate K rations. Large wooden hangars suitable for barracks-type housing stood empty and
unused. Fed up with this situation, Boyd led a revolt. He and his fellow soldiers tore down two hangars and used the wood
to build fires so they could stay warm. Soon after, the Army inventoried base property and discovered the hangars had gone
missing. Boyd was identified as the leader of the perpetrators and brought up on charges. A court-martial loomed. Officers
believed this would be the quick and uncontested trial of an enlisted man who clearly was guilty. But Private Boyd went on
the attack and turned the pending court-martial into a referendum on officer leadership and responsibility. He asked the investigating
officer if the Army’s general orders were in effect at the time he used wood from the hangars to build fires. When he was
told that of course the general orders were in effect, he said one of the general orders stated that the first responsibility
of an officer was to take care of his men. Officers were not doing that, not if enlisted personnel were sleeping on the ground
while suitable quarters stood empty. Boyd said that if the court-martial proceeded, he would raise the issue of officer responsibility
with higher authorities.

The charges were dropped. The U.S. military had lost its first runin with Boyd. In later years Boyd often told this story,
especially to Pentagon subordinates who idolized him. Among the Acolytes, Boyd’s most dedicated followers, the story achieved
almost ecclesiastical weight. Boyd also told the story to newspaper reporters with the added fillip: “If they had court-martialed
me, then they wouldn’t have had to put up with me later on.”

But when Boyd was interviewed by the Office of Air Force History for the Oral History Program, he did not tell this story.
One can only speculate as to why. During the lengthy interview, he told other stories in which he portrayed himself as a frequent
violator of Air
Force regulations. But he did not mention destroying the hangars, although, at bottom, both his reason for doing so and the
victory he achieved would certainly be worthy of note. Perhaps this was because the idea of enlisted men tearing down two
hangars and burning the wood without the knowledge of officers is difficult to believe. It would take weeks, and the fires
certainly would be noticed. And why tear them down at all? If the hangars were suitable as barracks, why didn’t Boyd and his
followers simply move into them? And it can only be called blackmail if Boyd threatened to raise the issue of officers’ responsibility
to their men with higher authorities. Historically the military has not caved in to blackmail from privates.

The Air Corps did not keep records of threatened courts-martial. But Boyd’s Acolytes are unwavering in their belief the story
is true. They say Boyd’s stories always remained consistent and that had Boyd been fabricating them, little details would
have changed over time.

In any case, the story reveals—especially if it is not true—how Boyd saw himself and would continue to see himself: the man
of principle battling superiors devoid of principle; the idealist fighting those of higher rank who have shirked their responsibilities;
the man who puts it all on the line and, after receiving threat of dire consequences, prevails. His principles win out over
his opposition’s lack of principles. It is just as his mother said.

Boyd was discharged on January 7, 1947, about two weeks before his twentieth birthday. His military records show he served
two years and two months, but this includes the six months from when he first enlisted on October 30, 1944—when he was still
a junior in high school—until he reported for duty the following April. His active duty time was about twenty months.

Boyd grew an inch and gained weight during his time in Japan. His discharge papers show that he now stood 6’1” and weighed
180 pounds. When he arrived home, his mother was amazed at how husky he had become. One of the first people Boyd looked up
upon returning to Erie was Frank Pettinato. They probably talked about Pettinato’s promotion; he now was chief lifeguard at
the Peninsula. And since Boyd was eligible for the GI Bill—a government-financed college education—it is almost certain that
Pettinato both encouraged him to go to college and counseled him about which college
to attend. They might also have talked about where Boyd could resume his swimming. The bay was frozen but Boyd swam often
at the YMCA at 10th and Peach Street in downtown Erie. And only weeks after he returned from Japan, he traveled with the Erie
Aquatic Club to Pittsburgh and swam against the famed University of Michigan swimming team. Boyd was the star. He won the
50-yard event in 26.2 seconds and was runner-up in the 100-yard senior freestyle.

When summer came, Boyd returned to his job at the Peninsula, now as assistant chief lifeguard. He spent much of his time patrolling
the beaches with Pettinato. Frank Pettinato Jr. was seven years old that summer and remembers that when he came to the beach
his father always spoke of Boyd in the most glowing terms. At home his father frequently told Frank Jr. he should grow up
to be like Boyd.

When summer ended, Boyd left for the University of Iowa to study economics. He picked Iowa because of David Armbruster, the
legendary swimming coach who established swimming as a sport at Iowa in 1917 and who was credited with developing the butterfly
stroke and the flip turn. As far back as 1927, Armbruster persuaded the university to build a 50-meter pool. He wrote a textbook
called “Competitive Swimming and Diving” and turned more than three dozen swimmers and divers into All-Americans. His swimmers
regularly set national intercollegiate records.

One of the more humbling aspects of higher education, both in athletics and in academics, is when a student finds that just
because he trailed clouds of glory in high school does not mean he will do the same in college. If Boyd went out for the swim
team when the season began in January 1948, he did not make it. The next year at Iowa he found himself competing against the
legendary Wally Ris, who began breaking swim records in 1947 and won an Olympic gold medal in 1948. His specialty was the
100-meter and the 220-yard freestyle—Boyd’s events.