Talk:Young Terry

My father, Gerson Meyer, was a very tough man who joined the Marine Corps in 1942. He was born in 1914 and would have been 28 years old at that time. He either joined or was drafted onto the boxing team, though he had no professional training and had never fought in the ring. He told me that the coach put him into the ring to work as a sparring partner for a middle weight (my Dad may have been heavier, 5'8" and probably about 185) whom he seemed to remember was named "Young Terry".

My Dad told me that he never lost a fight in the Marine Corps - though none of those fights were in the ring. However he said he could not beat this Young Terry, whom he knew nothing about except that he had been a professional fighter before the war. He said that, try as he might, he couldn't land a punch on Terry. My Dad was very strong and very fast (he won the high school 220 yard dash in Maryland with a time of 21 seconds flat) but he said Terry would dodge and weave and every punch my Dad threw would either land on a glove or end up in mid-air.

My Dad was in many, many fights over the course of his life, his last one being against two robbers one of whom had a gun when he (my Dad) was 77 years old. I'm sure they still remember the old man who knocked one of them into the hallway with a punch in the face and shoved the other out of his motel room. I had seem him knock out a nasty fellow with one punch when I was ten years old and I totally believed all of his stories - he was an honest as well as a tough and courageous man. He told me the only man he was unable to beat was Young Terry - a name that therefore loomed large in my young mind.

I never found out who Young Terry was until I came across this BoxRec page on the web. I presume it was this Young Terry and that Mr. Terry joined the Marine Corps during World War II. Unfortunately, I know nothing else about him. I don't know if he spent the war boxing or was shipped out to the Pacific. All I know is that he must have volunteered (the Marine Corps didn't accept draftees until later) and, from info here on BoxRec, that he survived the war.

I hope that info is of interest.

Thanks for letting me post.