In 1961, John F. Kennedy told Americans to ask what they could do for their country. In 1963, perhaps tired of waiting for an answer, he told them what they could do. Take a hike. Fifty miles. In twenty hours or less. Show the Commies how tough Americans are. Welcome to the New Frontier.

Kennedy’s challenge was the culmination of a series of events that began in the Eisenhower administration. On july 16th, 1956, President Eisenhower signed Executive order 10637, establishing the President’s Council On Youth Fitness. Ike did this in response to two events: Reports from the Pentagon detailing the number of young American men unable to meet the fitness requirements for military service during the Korean War, and a report from Dr. Hans Kraus and Bonnie Pruden showing that American children were less physically fit that than their contemporaries around the world. Alarmed by both reports, Eisenhower created the council to prepare America’s youth for service to the country.

Historically, exercise has been promoted as a tool to create better citizens. In Greece, in the 5th century, B.C., Socrates said, “For in everything men do, the body is useful, and in all uses of the body, it is of great importance to be in as high a state of physical efficiency as possible”. Boddidharma, in 5th century, A.D. China, taught the monks of the Shaolin Temple a type of kung fu, developing a strong body, as well as a strong mind and spirit. Seven hundred years later, at the Wu Dang Temple, Zhang SanFeng taught those monks the skill of Tai Chi, to create a whole person capable of taking care of the whole world, and himself.

The first structured efforts to teach what we now call physical education originated in Europe in the 19th century. Ling gymnastics originated in Sweden, and Jahn gymnastics was it’s German cousin. Pehr Henrik Ling made exercise a tool of established medicine, or, for some zealots, a replacement. Tired of Germany being bullied by the French, Fredrik Ludwig Jahn developed an exercise program called Turneverein. Jahn, however, was such a strong nationalist that even the German government grew weary of him, and sent him into a kind of exile in the German countryside, far away from the big cities, and impressionable German youth.

The first physical education program in a school in the United States was started in 1823 by Charles Beck, at The Round Hill School, in Massachusetts. Beck was a German, and had studied the Jahn system. The program at Round Hill was based on Jahn’s training principles, and while the goal was to produce well-rounded and physically capable citizens, there was no stated nationalistic purpose.

In cities and schools that could afford it, physical education was taught, exclusively to boys and men, as movements that would develop strength and stamina that would help them become more productive citizens. The approach changes in the 20th century, as football gained popularity. Games were seen as the way to get active and be healthy. Both basketball and volleyball were invented, at the Y.M.C.A., in Springfield, Massachusetts, to give clients winter activities. Throughout the last century, right up to today, physical education is game focused. The message of strength, stamina, and vitality, helpful in building good citizens, came from the burgeoning entrepreneurs of gyms and fitness equipment manufacturers. Basically, men were taught to be manly, and there were some female physical educators teaching women movement based on dance.

In December of 1960, John F. Kennedy wrote an article for Sports Illustrated titled “The Soft American”. Citing Eisenhower’s response to the reports of the Pentagon and Kraus and Pruden, he presented the traditional argument that physical fitness was essential to the development of capable, clear thinking people. Better citizens, if you will. Kennedy, however, took it a step further; he presented America’s collective softness as “… a menace to national security”. The reason, said JFK, was the threat posed by the Soviet Union. It was Us versus Them for world domination. Americans need to be strong for the fight.

Although the creators of physical education in America were nationalists, Kennedy’s reasoning was a first. He named a specific competitor that the physically fit American must conquer. The threat of Communism required strength and stamina in the defense of liberty. Strong Americans would allow the United States to “…realize our full potential as a country”. Strong Americans would prove the superiority of The American Way. Strong Americans were patriots.

Theodore Roosevelt loved and lived the strenuous life, and he wanted Americans to love and live it, too. While President, he exercised two hours a day, boxing, playing tennis, riding horses, hiking the trails around Washington, and skinny dipping in the Potomac River. His tennis partners were Army officers, known as the Tennis Cabinet. They related to TR their concern and disdain for the poor physical condition of many of their peers and superiors. In 1908, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 908, directing Captains and Lieutenants in the United States Marine Corps to complete a fifty mile hike in no more then twenty hours. “In battle, time is essential, and ground may have to be covered on the run. If these officers are not equal to the average physical strength of their companies, the men will be held back, resulting in unnecessary loss of life and probably defeat”.

Fifty-three years later, JFK learns of TR’s challenge, and sends a letter to General David M. Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps, issuing the same challenge. The modern Marine proved to be the equal of his predecessor, many completing the hike in one day, instead of the three allotted.

Robert F. Kennedy, the President’s brother, and also the Attorney General, took on the challenge, representing the Administration. He hiked fifty miles from Washington to Camp David in dress shoes. The press took notice, and, even though the President had not challenged them directly, so did the public. Everybody was talking about a new way of walking.

Fifty mile hikes and walks were sponsored by Boy Scout troops, college fraternities, and youth organizations, and individuals all across America tested their patriotic mettle. While not everyone completed the hike, many did, with several way under twenty hours.

Seventeen year old Ken Middleton, of the Aristocrats Athletic Club, Boonton, N.J., completed the hike in eleven hours, forty-nine minutes, in temperatures as cold a five degrees below zero. After wards, he said, “I’m too tired to think of anything”.

Kennedy’s call for America’s youth to get strong to confront the Soviet Union had two results. The first was a proxy Cold War with the Soviets, and ultimately, all the countries behind the Iron Curtain. From 1961 to the fall of the Soviet Union thirty years later, the United States used the Olympics and other world competitions to showcase the superiority of democracy over communism.

For kids my age, the other effect was The President’s Physical Fitness Award, given to junior high and high school students who met the standards of strength and stamina. Some of us loved it, some of us hated it. Standing broad jump, fifty yard dash, six hundred yard run, pull-ups (flexed arm hang for girls) push-ups, and sit-ups. One kid in my class did five hundred sit-ups in the seventh grade. In our senior year of high school, he did one thousand.

Kennedy knew that a nation founded on self-determination could not be forced to get into shape. Never the less, the President’s Council, created sixty-five years ago, exists today, renamed several times, and now with the added mission of teaching kids lessons on nutrition. Still, it cannot really be called a success. Physical educators who administered the test back in the day will tell you that they knew who would pass and who would fail before the test was given. The athletes would pass. The non-athletes would not.

The reasons for this are manifold, but the principle one is there was no plan or program to teach young people how to make physical training a simple part of a lifestyle. You can’t just tell people they’ll be better citizens if they’re physically fit, you must show them, all of them, even the “non-athletes”, a simple and easily doable way to become fit citizens. A cursory glance at society tells you that Americans received no such message. The number of obese people, especially young people, is staggering. The number of people with diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis, is sobering. Advances in pharmaceuticals and medical interventions allow us to live longer, but many of us are unable to live vigorously.

The basics of strength, nutrition, and good health are simple to understand, and easy to implement. It takes an effort, but not a super human one. The benefits, both to individuals and society, are well known. Physical fitness is not a requirement of patriotism, but what if it made you a better patriot? Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Kennedy thought it would.

So, walk right in. Sit right down. Daddy, let your mind roll on.