Nugent apparently now claims he made the whole thing up:
http://www.suprmchaos.com/bcEnt-Mon-060704.index.html
Which still leaves unsettled how exactly he did keep from being drafted.
No.
He was arrested and years later the arrest kept him from being inducted. The whole experiece, with some dramatization, became his signature song.
Generally an arrest would not keep you out of the service. In fact, many people were told by a judge, “you have a choice, Son, jail or the Army.” I personally know two people who were put in this situation and both chose the service.
Haj
So…this would work? I still don’t get it: you show up…in that condition and pretend to be crazy, they take you at your word and send you home? Surely there would be more wisenheimers out there who could just show up and pretend to be Napoleon or Jesus or a space alien or whatever, and they’d have to take it to Step 2 and have you evaluated. I mean, they’d achieve the same result and not have to soil themselves to do it. I can’t believe somebody didn’t just tell Nugent to hit the showers and get back in line.
Assuming this actually happened, of course.
All of these “who did what to get out of Vietnam” stories seem to assume that not many guys in the '60s were willing to misrepresent themselves even if it meant getting out of Vietnam: pretending to be gay or insane was not an option. I wonder what would happen if we had a draft now.
It wasn’t all that difficult to find a sympathetic MD to write a letter for you and coach you how to act to “prove” that you had an illness. Unless the particular draft board really needed the bodies, they probably didn’t want to take the time to fuck with you.
Haj
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this story, as I’m sure it’s been embellished, but from a guy I know from work:
During Vietnam I was drafted. And the day we were to ship out–we’d gotten our shots and filled out the forms and everything–we were standing in front of the bus getting ready to get on it.
And the Sergeant says, “Alright, this is your last chance. If there’s any reason any of you will not be good for this Army and this nation, you’d better step forward and tell me now so we can get your sorry asses out of here”
And a few guys stepped forward and said they were queer–and they obviously were–and so I decided what the hell, and I stepped forward too and said I was gay.
They shuffled us off into a little room, where a little German psychiatrist was waiting. He said, “There eez something vrong with all of you.” And he points to me and says, “You. Have you ever been vith a voman?”
I said, “Yes, once.”
“And who are your two favorite composers?”
“Bach and Stravinsky.”
And he screams, “This man is a homosexual!” And then two soldiers escorted me out of the building as he started interrogating the next guy.
I received a letter the next week excusing me of my duties.
He swears it’s true but who knows… Well, it makes for a funny story, anyway.
“…and creatin’ a nuisance” 
FU Shakespeare
Yes I’ve heard his claim that he made up his “lack of hygiene” story. Still, as you say, what did keep him out? Sure Ted Nugent is a macho “tough guy” - just like John Wayne. And if I remember correctly Wayne NEVER stated what kept him out of the service and World War II. He just let his fans make things up - football injury, too old, etc. Cecil (as most of you probably know) posted this:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_004.html
Walloon
Actually Ted Nugent would have been eligible for the draft when he turned 19 which was December 13, 1967. This was two years before the draft lottery was in effect so he just couldn’t say he had a high draft lottery number.
A man’s draft classification under the Selective Service System is a public record. Anyone can make a Freedom of Information Act request for Ted Nugent’s draft classification record.
Walloon
Well I went to that link and it says:
*How to Obtain a Copy: The classification record is public information and is available to anyone who asks for it. Requesters must provide the registrant’s full name, date of birth, and address at the time of registration (usually when the registrant was 18 years old). *
Anyone know his address as of December 13, 1966?
And the draft deferment stories keep on coming.
I can’t find a cite for this one at the moment but I once read that he took amphetamines before the draft physical in order to raise his blood presure so high it would qualify as a medical deferment.
Here’s the latest one:
http://www.tednugent.com/news/tv_stranglehold.shtml
*The old boy, who gave us “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Stranglehold” and “Great White Buffalo,” never served in the military. He had an educational deferment during Vietnam. “I went to one year of college. I don’t think I even bought books. I’ve always said I didn’t go to college. I was too busy learning stuff.”
*
Gee, getting a college deferment for one year kept someone out of the draft forever? That’s bullshit.
In his book I Need More, Iggy Pop claims to have gotten out of Vietnam by pretending to be gay.
As he tells it, he first prepared by allowing his mother to both cut his hair and dress him. Then, when undressing from his “mama’s boy” gear for the physical examination, he slipped into a private corner and masturbated until he had an erection. He pretended to be embarassed by this, took some official aside and “confessed” that he was gay and “couldn’t be around all these undressed guys”. He was then told that he’d need a psychiatric exam. While waiting to see the psychiatrist, he ran around in circles and hyperventillated until he seemed like someone in real emotional distress. He managed to be enough of a pathetic sniveling wreck to convince both the doctor and the officer that came to question him that he wasn’t the sort the military wanted. He says he even managed real tears, at least partially because he was genuinely afraid his plan wouldn’t work and he’d wind up in the jungle after all.
Whether this story is true or not I don’t know. When questioned about how he avoided Vietnam in a radio interview a few years ago, Iggy just said “They didn’t want me” and refused to elaborate. However, “I cried like a sissy girl until they believed I was gay” doesn’t seem like the sort of thing one would invent.
You don’t need Nugent’s exact address, just enough so that the Selective Service knows what registration district he was in. I’ve gotten draft status records without knowing anything more than the person’s city of residence. For the record, the Nugent family moved to Chicago in 1965, and after Ted graduated from high school in 1967, he moved back to Detroit.
But don’t assume that he was called up for induction when he turned 18 in 1966. Before the draft lottery in 1969, just because a man was in the proper age group doesn’t mean he was called up. A lot depended on local recruitment quotas.
Couple more “outs” I didn’t see mentioned - getting married, as my father did in 1963; and having children, as my father-in-law did in 1968. I came along in 1964 so my Dad was already covered at the point where being married was no longer sufficient.
I was 15 in 1975, so had the Vietnam conflict not ended then, I could possibly have ended up in the draft.
Anyway, this was something I didn’t want to do, because I saw the pictures on the TV.
I was also quite impressed by what my neighbors did to avoid the draft. The couple next door had five sons, and the four oldest ones did this: a few months or so before they were due to appear in front of the draft board, they stuffed themselves with large quantities of fatty, high-calorie food.
And they stopped exercising. They were all large football players, so they started out with quite a lot on their frames.
But when they ate like pigs and became couch potatoes, I’ll bet they were each 100-150 pounds overweight (easily) when they rolled up to the draft examiners.
Trouble was, the board kept calling them back every few months or so, to see if they had slimmed down any.
Man, that must have been very hard on their bodies.
Walloon
Okay just to make absolutely sure, his residence as of December 13, 1966 was Chicago correct?
And the way the draft … (ahem “Selective Service”) worked back then was:
- you registered at eighteen and
- you became eligible for induction into the military at 19 years of age.
So, his draft eligibility started on December 13, 1967. I don’t know if you are familiar with that particular period but the Vietnam War was probably at its height during Ted’s period of eligibility.
Also, you stated*
just because a man was in the proper age group doesn’t mean he was called up. *
From what I’ve heard, draft notices were sent very quickly when you either:
- turned 19 or
- stopped attending school (either flunking out, dropping out or graduating).
If that weren’t the case, why was “Dubya” Bush in such a hurry to get Dad to push him ahead of the others in the Texas National Guard waiting list?
By the way Wallon, you were a “jarhead”?
When did you serve? (Just wondering).
H’uh. I thought Iggy Pop WAS gay, or at the very least, bisexual.
Chicago area. The Nugents may have been living in the suburbs. But like I said, don’t assume that he was living in Chicago when he was inducted. He may have been back in Detroit. The draft registration and the draft classification are two different records.
Before the draft lottery was implemented in 1969, local boards called men classified 1-A, 18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first, until their quotas were met. This resulted in uncertainty for the potential draftees during the entire time they were within the draft-eligible age group.
I lived through that period, and my uncle was in Vietnam at the time.
George W. Bush had a college deferral until he graduated in 1968. At that time he was in the middle of the draft-age cohort, and his odds of being inducted were only increasing (remember, at that time, oldest first). He enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1968, thereby limiting the chances that he would be called for service in Vietnam.
Had he not enlisted in the Texas ANG, he would have been eligible for induction from May 1968 to December 1969, when the first Vietnam-era draft lottery was held. In that lottery, Bush’s date of birth (July 6) was #327, and the highest number called up for induction from that 1944-1950 age group was #195.
1982-1984.
Definitely not gay. He’s had sex with a whole lotta women and apparently enjoyed it quite a bit. He was married twice, once for a significant length of time. Rumor has it that the breakup of that marriage was motivated by too-public infidelity with another woman on his part. Iggy’s currently involved with a very attractive and much younger woman. He’s possibly bisexual, but AFAIK he’s never actually had sex with another man (or hasn’t admitted to it if he has).
As implausible as it may sound, it seems that he and David Bowie really were just good friends.