For a Short Time, Worst Was Best

Then came 1950 - November - when Worst's fortunes shifted in two particularly dramatic ways. First off, he got married. Secondly, he got drafted. Those two life-events were not strictly unrelated, in that Tena agreed to marry Harold knowing that he would face possibly life-threatening dangers in Korea. Harold shipped out with the army's 244th Ordnance depot company, served basic training in Indianapolis, and then got briefly stationed at Camp Atterbury, Ind.

He managed to snag a quick furlough to play in that year's national tournament, where he placed second (with a 7-2 record) after Mexico's Joe Chamaco. Hoppe, forever in Harold's corner, predicted afterwards that the new boy wonder would emerge as "the next world champion, providing he can practice as much with a cue as he can with a rifle." Worst then spent nine months in Korea as a member of the Army graves registration unit - an assignment that forever depressed him.

"He had to identify the bodies, and sometimes the whole body wasn't there, or he would have to find the leg, or an arm, or whatever, before they could ship the body home,'' said Tena Worst. "He had to put them in bags and identify them. It's no wonder that half those men go crazy. You had to have a lot of a faith, and his faith helped him in that. It's not a pleasant thing."

Mercifully, Worst later won a transfer to a special services unit, in which he was called upon to give pool lessons and perform exhibitions at military recreation centers. He got discharged in November 1952, and returned to world competition five months later.

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