on

"[Ali] was someone that fought a very similar fight and was trying to do what was right for the people. For me, to be able to have someone like that come before me, is huge. He is someone who helped pave the way for this to happen. What he did and what he stood for, people remember him more for that than they do a boxer. I can't let him die in vain. I have to try to carry that on and try to fight that same fight until we accomplish our goal."

DZ: Last question, do you have any sports and politics heroes? Who are political athletes whom today you’ve looked to as a role model or inspired you to do what you did? AS: Yeah. I’m actually trying to brush up on my history. Because that wasn’t something that was the focus during my high school or primary school education but in passing I have heard the words of Muhammad Ali and the stances that he took while he was a boxer.

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016) was the only professional boxer to win the heavyweight championship three times. With his outspoken political and religious views, he provided leadership and inspiration for African American men and women and Muslims around the world.

The Viet Nam era draft card is also known by its legal description, the status card. The draft card was an aspect of the Selective Service Act, the federal legislation that legalized the conscription of eligible males into the American armed services during the Viet Nam war (1962–1973).

In the dark, rain-swept early morning hours of December 23rd, Kajioka returned, his fleet bolstered by four heavy cruisers and various other warships, including landing craft, to assault Wake’s beaches with more than 900 well-trained infantrymen of the Special Naval Landing Force. At 2:35 a.m., the first Japanese landing barge ground ashore. Soon a desperate battle was being fought across the atoll between groups of men fighting with rifles, bayonets, grenades and fists. The Americans fought hard, but more Japanese landed and pushed them toward the island’s center. Teters’ civilian construction workers, many of whom had manned anti-aircraft guns earlier in the fight, now took up rifles and grenades to fight beside the American servicemen.