When 24-year-old John F. Kennedy tried to enlist during World War II, he was initially turned away. Although he was the son of one of America's wealthiest entrepreneurs, Kennedy was not rejected because of connections. The doctors had a legitimate medical concern: Kennedy had a slipped disc around his lumbar spine, because the adjacent bone had inexplicably softened. Historian Robert A. Caro later wrote in "The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power" that it was "almost as if the spine had rotted away," likely due to medical treatments Kennedy had received for stomach and colon pain. Kennedy was far from surprised by the spinal diagnosis, given that he had been suffering intense lower back pain for months. Yet instead of accepting that he would not serve his country, Kennedy used his rich father's connections to get a dangerous assignment on Navy patrol torpedo boats in the South Pacific.
Although Kennedy is not often regarded as an icon for the disabled community, Kennedy's story is the quintessential tale of overcoming a disability-caused adversity.
