National Affairs: Two-Sabre Man

• Share

The Army is strong on soubriquets, and nowhere does the bearer of an historic nickname fare better than at West Point. Henry E. ("Light Horse Harry"*) Wilson, Army football captain last year and Army football crackerjack the past four years, took both the Edgerton Sabre (for being football captain) and the Army Athletic Association Sabre (for being best all round athlete) at last week's West Point ceremonies. It was the first time that a cadet had won both swords. Some people said that the nickname hypnotized the judges. This was most unjust, for Cadet Wilson outstood in baseball and lacrosse as well as football.

What made the Wilson awards remarkable, especially in the opinion of men who have sported against West Point, was the supremacy of any one "Pointer" over all his fellows in all-round ability. West Pointers must be fit to get in, to stay in. Their life is rigorous, their sports many. That "Light Horse Harry" Wilson outmuscled and outgeneraled his classmates in all things, was, after all, less remarkable than the fact that in all West Point history (the Academy was founded in 1802) no previous captain of "the manliest sport" has clearly outmanned all his contemporaries in other directions.

The Army's current "Light Horse Harry" is going into the Air Corps.