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BETWEEN RACES By OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page Forty for service, and within a few months he found himself on the firing line in Asia as a rifleman. He was hit in the shoulder with a shell, but fortunately, quick and good surgery saved the use of the arm, now as good as ever. McKenna received his discharge only last month, and, after a three-week holiday with his parents in Rhode Island, came back to the track to get fit, take off some pounds induced by Army chow, and he hopes to launch his saddle comeback with the opening of Monmouth Park. Like everyone else in racing, we wish McKenna well, and hope the good people of Jersey will give him an opportunity to get started. A number of riders have fought, and well, in the Korean skirmishing, and at least two have made excellent comebacks. We refer to Merlin Volzke, who was away for five years, then returned to the West Coast turf wars in good saddle form, and more recently, Billy Parnell, who quickly showed California fans a few months ago that his long service had not impaired his saddle ability one whit. During World War II., racing kept a prideful tab on its citizens in uniform and on the battle fronts, but the Korean fighting has evoked no such reaction. Maybe it is a police action only, as some would have you believe, but it nevertheless is a police action with real bullets, as McKennas shoulder would well attest. All these returning vets are asking is a break, and they richly are entitled to it, for they themselves are the first to admit that if they have actually lost their skill, their usefulness as riders is definitely over.
