Question

Douglass was a fighter par excellence ​

Answer 1

Douglass was a fighter par excellence indeed. He fought a great battle with his own fear of water. He had to work very hard to overcome his deeply ingrained fear of water that he had got infected with at the YMCA pool after the tragic incident. The fear spoilt all his excursions with his friends. Whenever he accompanied his friends to Cascades, Tieton, Warm lake, the fear of water seized him, his legs paralyzed and icy horror grabbled his heart.

Finally one October he hired an instructor to learn swimming. The instructor put a belt around him. He attached the belt around him. He attached the belt to a cable that ran overhead. He held on the rope and the author tried to swim back and forth across the pool, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. The author took three months to learn the basics. Then the instructor taught him how to exhale underwater and how to raise his nose and inhale. Then he taught him how to kick the water with his legs.  

After teaching and perfecting the basics, he asked the author to swim the length of the pool. From the next day onwards, the author swam the length of the pool all by himself. After that there was no turning back. He swam across Lake Wentworth and Warmlake. That is how the author overcame his fear.

Answer 2

Answer:

A military brat, Douglas MacArthur was born 26 January 1880, at Little Rock Barracks, Little Rock, Arkansas, to Arthur MacArthur Jr., a U.S. Army captain, and his wife, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur (nicknamed "Pinky").[1] Arthur Jr. was a son of Scottish-born jurist and politician Arthur MacArthur Sr.,[2] Arthur would later receive the Medal of Honor for his actions with the Union Army in the Battle of Missionary Ridge during the American Civil War,[3] and be promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.[4] Pinkney came from a prominent Norfolk, Virginia, family.[1] Two of her brothers had fought for the South in the Civil War, and refused to attend her wedding.[5] Of the extended family, MacArthur is also distantly related to Matthew Perry, a Commodore of the US Navy.[6] Arthur and Pinky had three sons, of whom Douglas was the youngest, following Arthur III, born on 1 August 1876, and Malcolm, born on 17 October 1878.[7] The family lived on a succession of Army posts in the American Old West. Conditions were primitive, and Malcolm died of measles in 1883.[8] In his memoir, Reminiscences, MacArthur wrote "I learned to ride and shoot even before I could read or write—indeed, almost before I could walk and talk."[9]A ornate chair and a table with a book on it. A man sits in the chair, wearing an American Civil War style peaked cap. On his sleeves he wears three stripes pointed down with a lozenge of a First Sergeant.

A military brat, Douglas MacArthur was born 26 January 1880, at Little Rock Barracks, Little Rock, Arkansas, to Arthur MacArthur Jr., a U.S. Army captain, and his wife, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur (nicknamed "Pinky").[1] Arthur Jr. was a son of Scottish-born jurist and politician Arthur MacArthur Sr.,[2] Arthur would later receive the Medal of Honor for his actions with the Union Army in the Battle of Missionary Ridge during the American Civil War,[3] and be promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.[4] Pinkney came from a prominent Norfolk, Virginia, family.[1] Two of her brothers had fought for the South in the Civil War, and refused to attend her wedding.[5] Of the extended family, MacArthur is also distantly related to Matthew Perry, a Commodore of the US Navy.[6] Arthur and Pinky had three sons, of whom Douglas was the youngest, following Arthur III, born on 1 August 1876, and Malcolm, born on 17 October 1878.[7] The family lived on a succession of Army posts in the American Old West. Conditions were primitive, and Malcolm died of measles in 1883.[8] In his memoir, Reminiscences, MacArthur wrote "I learned to ride and shoot even before I could read or write—indeed, almost before I could walk and talk."[9]A ornate chair and a table with a book on it. A man sits in the chair, wearing an American Civil War style peaked cap. On his sleeves he wears three stripes pointed down with a lozenge of a First Sergeant.MacArthur as a student at West Texas Military Academy in the late 1890s MacArthur's time on the frontier ended in July 1889 when the family moved to Washington, D.C.,[10] where he attended the Force Public School. His father was posted to San Antonio, Texas, in September 1893. While there MacArthur attended the West Texas Military Academy,[11] where he was awarded the gold medal for "scholarship and deportment". He also participated on the school tennis team, and played quarterback on the school football team and shortstop on its baseball team. He was named valedictorian, with a final year average of 97.33 out of 100.[12] MacArthur's father and grandfather unsuccessfully sought to secure Douglas a presidential appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, first from President Grover Cleveland and then from President William McKinley.[13] After these two rejections,[14] he was given coaching and private tutoring by Milwaukee high school teacher Gertrude Hull.[15] He then passed the examination for an appointment from Congressman Theobald Otjen,[11] scoring 93.3 on the test.[16] He later wrote: "It was a lesson I never forgot. Preparedness is the key to success and victory."[16]MacArthur entered West Point on 13 June 1899,[17] and his mother also moved there, to a suite at Craney's Hotel, which overlooked the grounds of the Academy.[18] Hazing was widespread at West Point at this time, and MacArthur and his classmate Ulysses S. Grant III were singled out for special attention by southern cadets as sons of generals with mothers living at Craney's. When Cadet Oscar Booz left West Point after being hazed and subsequently died of tuberculosis, there was a congressional inquiry. MacArthur was called to appear before a special Congressional committee in 1901, where he testified against cadets implicated in hazing, but downplayed his own hazing even though the other cadets gave the full story to the committee. Congress subsequently outlawed acts "of a harassing, tyrannical, abusive, shameful, insulting or humiliating nature", although hazing continued.[19]