Times have changed.
WASHINGTON -- Elvis Presley was considered an exemplary soldier and denied special treatment in the Army despite his enormous celebrity for fear that would detract from the "highly favorable public impression" he had made serving as a mere draftee armored scout car driver in Germany.
World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis won the Legion of Merit for "outstanding meritorious conduct" as an Army sergeant in World War II and was able to use his influence to gain admission to officer candidate school for fellow soldier and future baseball great Jackie Robinson and other African-Americans otherwise discriminated against in the military.
Actor Steve McQueen, who played tough-guy, loner roles in "The Great Escape," "The Sand Pebbles" and other memorable war movies, was something of the same in real life--doing 30 days' confinement for going AWOL as a U.S. Marine.
And Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac, remembered for his wild, unfettered stream-of-consciousness novels, lasted just eight days in the Navy before being placed under psychiatric observation and later discharged as unfit for military service. |