Word: toughened
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Purpose is to Toughen...
...march their officers dinned into them, "the enemy is stronger." The mottoes of "the Greatest Army in Europe" became planquez-vous (hide) and sauve qui peut. In a fatal confusion of discipline with punishment, the officers tried to toughen them while they marched: 35, 40, 45 kilometers a night. The older men fell out. The stronger, to ease their regulation load of 70 pounds, tossed their equipment in the ditches. Trucks were nowhere to be seen...
...tough. As a contractor's helper he once fell four stories without getting hurt. He was Olympic singles sculling champion (1920). At 51 he still rows, plays handball, swims, golfs. Last fall he went to Washington and told President Roosevelt that national defense demanded that all citizens toughen themselves for physical ordeals ahead...
Jack Kelly seized the job with both hands. This week he opened Physical Training headquarters in Philadelphia, announced that he would appoint a woman to toughen U.S. women, would enlist prominent athletes (e.g., Jack Dempsey, Tom Harmon) "to help teach the men and women of America to be strong." He plans to start a toughening-for-defense school in every village, town and city; to organize hiking clubs, calisthenics clubs, softball and soccer clubs, swimming clubs, skating clubs; to open Government clinics to diagnose citizens' physical weaknesses...
Jacob was never much. His mother died of consumption when he was very small. Papa Djugashvili (who later called himself Stalin) used to try to toughen up little Jacob's lungs by blowing pipe smoke in his face. So Jacob took up smoking before he was ten; and his father had to beat him for that...