“It was like this. You see, Dick had struck up a friendship with Captain Kit Carson. After the Spanish American War, Carson went to the Philippines as a Circuit Court Judge. But he didn’t forget his friend Dick. They exchanged letters. In one letter the Captain mentioned that it would be a fine idea if Dick Byrd came down to the Philippines to see the exciting time that they were having down there. Dick took him up on the idea, and made plans to go. At first his mother was horrified at the idea, since Dick was not a strong boy. But with unusual intelligence, she decided to let him go, since the trip would be an educational one, and would do the boy more good than any possible harm that could come to him. The very fact that he wanted so badly to go, and planned his trip so carefully, made her feel that he had reached an age where he must be allowed to decide for himself. This was a very wise decision on her part, since it was probably this trip, with its adventures in self-reliance that made Richard into the successful adventurer that he is.”
“The trip to Manila was made exciting by a typhoon that stuck the transport—something that the boy would not have wanted to miss, although the Captain of the transport could have done very well without it—he said it was the worst that he’d ever been through.
“They got to Manila, though, safe and sound, and Dick was greeted by his friend Carson. Manila was intensely amusing for a boy of fourteen. Amusing, and mighty exciting. The excitement included a lone combat with a gang of angry rebels armed with knives—from which the young Dick escaped only by the fleetness of his pony’s heels. That’s the sort of adventure young boys dream of, and that’s the sort they should have to look back on, if they are to live the full sort of life that Richard Byrd did.
“From Manila, Dick went visiting to Darim Island. On the island the cholera plague was raging, and Dick got exposed to the disease. They put him into quarantine. He didn’t get the cholera, but all around him men were dying in terrible agony. Finally the doctor managed to get Dick to the seaport, and he got a boat for Manila. They were glad to see him back, and he was glad to be back.
“After Manila, Dick went on his merry way around the world by way of Ceylon and the Red Sea to Port Said, where he reshipped for the last lap of his cruise. It was a wonderful trip for a boy, and there’s no doubt that it had a great influence on all that he did later.
“When Richard got back, and had settled down more or less, his parents decided that he should go to Virginia Military Institute. He was popular at the Institute, as he was popular wherever he went, for his spirit—that old spirit that carried him around the world, and later across both of the earth’s poles. It was the same spirit that made him try out for the football team at V.M.I.—and carried him to the position of end on the first team. It was at that time that an incident occurred which was to be very significant in his later life. In one game of the season he broke his ankle. This was not important in itself—but it happened to be the first break of an ankle that was going to bother Dick again and again—and almost at one time defeat him entirely.
“But I’m getting ahead of my story. After being graduated from the Military Institute, Dick Byrd went quite naturally to Annapolis. He entered in 1908. He carried his popularity and his success with him to this place. His grades were not of the highest, but he excelled in athletics, going out for football again, besides track, boxing, and wrestling.
“In his last year at Annapolis, Dick’s ankle made itself felt again. Dick was Captain of his gym squad, which was competing in the big exhibition of the year. Dick, as Captain, wanted to make a spectacular showing, and cinch the meet for his team. To do this, he invented an intricate, complicated series of tricks on the bars, calculated to stir up the most lethargic members of the audience. It would have been a great trick—if it had succeeded—but it didn’t. Dick slipped, somehow, and his hands failed to connect with the bars. Down he went—on the same ankle, breaking it once more.
“In 1912 he got his commission, and became an ensign. And he also began to formulate plans for his great adventures. Connected with the Navy—there was no telling what opportunity for adventure would come to him. But he reckoned without his ankle. It gave way a third time—this time while he was going down a gangway, so that he was pitched headfirst down. They tried to fix up the ankle—in fact, they joined the bones together with a silver nail. That is, Byrd thought that they had used a silver nail—and when he discovered that just a plain, ordinary nail had been used, he felt very much deflated. Nail and all, Byrd walked with a limp, and an ensign with a limp was just useless, so far as the Navy was concerned. So Byrd was retired.
“That must have been an awful blow to him. Not only was the only career open to him cut short, but he had been married the year before, to Marie Ames, a childhood sweetheart from Winchester. So that his retirement affected not just himself, but another as well.