First, a few facts about the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet physical fitness program; then I want to share a little anecdote about an unusual incident that you might like to read.

Physical Fitness
One thing you could be sure of was that the Army Air Corps would schedule inspection procedures for assuring that important programs were achieving their intended results. Physical fitness was one such program. To check on its effectiveness, athletic performance drills were frequently scheduled. And, based on his performance, a PFR (Physical Fitness Rating) was recorded for each Aviation Cadet.

The PFR athletic performance drill inspections consisted of counting or measuring chin-ups on a horizontal bar, sit-ups, push-ups, a shuttle-run, and a 300 yard dash. These were somehow magically computed into a PFR score. The shuttle-run was a performace test which measured the time it took each Aviation Cadet to run back and forth three times between two stakes in the ground 20 yards apart. The 300 yard dash was just plain old straight ahead hard running.

The Fleckenstein Challenge
One morning in a PFR drill we were ordered to choose partners to be timed in running the 300 yard dash together. I'm sure that the accuracy of the time recorded on each cadet's run had nothing to do with why we were ordered to run in pairs. Nor do I for even one moment believe it was to cut in half the overall time it would take to conduct the running event. What I do believe is that, in his wisdom, the officer-in-charge injected the element of "personal competition" in order to stimulate each cadet to strive for his best possible performance.

In the five minutes of pairing-up, I didn't choose anyone, and nobody chose me. And you could be sure that no one chose to run against Fleckenstein. Fleck was always so fast that others accused him of just flying low instead of running. Anyhow, I was the only one left standing there to run against him. We didn't have to choose. It just happened.

All the others had run and were now eagerly waiting to witness Fleck's glory and my humiliating defeat. At the starting line, the starting referee called out, "Runners to your mark! ..... Get set! ..". But Fleck had jumped the gun, and we had to start over. After watching all the others get started, he pretty muchly had the starting referee's timing figured out. So did I, and I was pressing it, too. I needed all the help I could get.

On the next and final start. I got the jump on Fleck and was running harder than I had ever run in my life, trying to keep that one-foot lead I had gotten. I think it made him mad, and he was pushing his throttle to the firewall, too. I was straining every gut and muscle in my body to keep his hot breath behind me. In my determination, I felt not the least bit guilty about getting the jump on him. Like the good old Army Air Corps Song we were singing every day said --- "We live in fame or go down in flame". Well, the way I felt about it, I had to keep that lead or go down in shame. He was so close on my tail that, if we had been airplanes, his propeller would have been chewing away at my empennage.

It seemed to be taking forever to get to the end of those 300 yards. But, when I finally saw the finish referee click his stopwatch as we sailed past, I was still one foot ahead of Fleck the Great! When I got my breath again, I asked the referee, and he said my time had been 30 seconds. I asked what Fleck's time was, and he said, "30 seconds". Why, of course. There couldn't have been more than one one-thousandth of a second between us.

What a challenge that was! And what an experience: holding that ill-gotten lead against the fastest man among us. I don't think I could have ever done it again. Something had simply come over me, or gotten into me. Something really, really super-good (for me, but not for Fleck). It's strange how things go when a group builds up big expectations of someone, and then he suddenly "fumbles the ball" in their opinion. I saw how they were looking at Fleck. I looked at him, too, and he was really embarrassed. Fleck didn't lose the race. We tied. The only thing Fleck lost was the jump at the starting gun.