21. One American ace later served as a Commissioner of Professional Football
The United States Marine Corps’ Joe Foss had to fight to receive training as a fighter pilot, since the Corps considered his age of 26 to be too old for the role. His persistence paid off, and in 1942 he and his air group, VMF-121, arrived at Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field. As part of the famed Cactus Air Force, as it came to be called, Foss endured shelling from the Japanese Navy, strafing and bombing attacks by enemy aircraft, and near-daily combat operations. His victory total rose steadily. In November he was shot down, ditching at sea. Rescued, he soon contracted malaria, and evacuated to Australia to recover. In 1943 he returned to Guadalcanal.
He became the first American pilot to match Eddie Rickenbacker’s score of 26 enemy planes, receiving the Medal of Honor in March, 1943. After the war (in which he contracted malaria a second time) Foss returned to his native South Dakota, entering politics. Eventually, he served two terms as Governor. In 1959 he became the first Commissioner of the new American Football League, and engineered the lucrative television contracts which ensured the league’s success. John Wayne attempted to make a film based on Foss’s war years in 1955, but the project fell through. In 2002 Foss was stopped at Sky Harbor in Phoenix, and his Medal of Honor was confiscated. Eventually, it was returned, following a national furor over TSA’s failure to recognize America’s highest military award.