Kennedy march

A Kennedy march is a long-distance march of 50 miles (80 km), named after former American president John F. Kennedy.

Origin

John F. Kennedy came into office with a goal of improving the health of the nation as part of his New Frontier policy program. As President-elect, he wrote an article for Sports Illustrated, December 26, 1960, called "The Soft American" which warned that Americans were becoming unfit in a changing world where automation and increased leisure time replaced the benefits of exercise and hard work.

“A single look at the packed parking lot of the average high school will tell us what has happened to the traditional hike to school that helped to build young bodies. The television set, the movies and the myriad conveniences and distractions of modern life all lure our young people away from the strenuous physical activity that is the basis of fitness in youth and in later life,” wrote Kennedy.

President Kennedy addressed the issue of physical fitness frequently in his public pronouncements, and assigned new projects to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, an organization established by Kennedy's predecessor Eisenhower on July 16, 1956.

The idea of a 50-mile, twenty hour march developed from Kennedy's discovery in late 1962 of an executive order from Theodore Roosevelt, which challenged U.S. Marine officers to finish 50 miles (80 km) in twenty hours, spread out over a maximum of three days. Kennedy passed the document on to his own Marine commandant, General David M. Shoup, and suggested that Shoup bring it up to him as his own discovery, with the proposal that modern day Marines should duplicate this feat. The President went on to say that:

Should your report to me indicate that the strength and stamina of the modern Marine is at least equivalent to that of his antecedents, I will then ask Mr. Salinger to look into the matter personally and give me a report on the fitness of the White House Staff.