# What exempted Bob Dylan from military service? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 4, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631 "2007-06-04T00:59:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/21 "2014-10-24T22:42:29Z")
As was said above, Dylan was too old for the draft by the time they started using numbers, i.e. the draft lottery. As for medical exams, you had to pass one to be drafted at any time in the 20th century. For that matter, you had to pass one to enlist. You still do. (Although waivers exist, and other nitpicks.) As for your brother, timing is a bitch. The draft ended after I received my draft notice. Doesn’t get much closer than that. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/22 "2014-10-24T23:35:13Z")
he couldn’t carry a tune and kept messing up the cadence call. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/23 "2014-10-24T23:43:09Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > The way the military draft worked in the 1960s before the draft lottery in 1969 was that each registration district had a quota to meet. If the district did not make its quota through volunteers, it could begin drafting registrants. The draft worked in age order: 18 years olds first, then 19 year olds, etc., until the quota was met. It was rare that a district had to go past 21-year-olds. Dylan qualified for an educational deferral from 1959 to 1961, when he was 20. Realistically, there was only one year when Dylan faced the possibilty of being drafted, and even then the odds were low, based on the statistics I gave above. Did people try to move to places where they felt there were more volunteers and less of a need for draftees per capita? Did that work? E.g. if you lived in Philly and just got up one day and moved to Nashville and duly registered your address change, would you be regrouped into Nashville’s quota or would you stay on Philly’s list? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2014, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/24 "2014-10-24T23:48:25Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > You cannot apply today’s eligibility requirements (which lately have been relaxed, by the way — gang members, for example, can get in) to conscription during the Vietnam era. As for the period from '58 to '64, there was far less conscription than after escalation (today called “surging”) had begun. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > … > > As for medical exams, you had to pass one to be drafted at any time in the 20th century. For that matter, you had to pass one to enlist. You still do. (Although waivers exist, and other nitpicks.) > … Good points. Of course, when a draft is in effect, standards are either going to be relaxed, whether officially (e.g. due to policy adjustments) or unofficially. Certainly many medical screeners during the draft era would be quite inclined to conveniently ignore signs of minor health problems that might technically constitute grounds for rejection. In more recent times when more people want to serve than there are slots available, standards are obviously going to be more rigorous. I know a guy who got rejected for a rare and almost entirely inconsequential congenital blood disorder. At the height of Nam they probably wouldn’t have bothered even checking for things like that. Can you stand up? Do you weigh under 400 pounds? Good to go! ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/25 "2014-10-25T01:28:45Z")
Remember that of 8 million Vietnam era vets, only 2 million were draftees. The rest were volunteers. (Yes, some were coerced… service or jail time. Still, VN was not the war of the draftees as some try to portray it.) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/26 "2014-10-25T01:35:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Anyway the point is that the hippie movement started much earlier than people think. It died in 1967, rather than being born in 1967. After that it was just plastic hippies, man. Oh, baby, now they’re such a drag. > [@johnpost](#): > > he couldn’t carry a tune and kept messing up the cadence call. Did he mess it up by adding more syllables, to the point of making the line nine and a fifth times as long and really messing up the guys in the band? Cuz that’s really hard to march to. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/27 "2014-10-25T01:57:40Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > he couldn’t carry a tune and kept messing up the cadence call. Nah, it’s that he never did the same way twice. > [@robert\_columbia](#): > > At the height of Nam they probably wouldn’t have bothered even checking for things like that. Can you stand up? Do you weigh under 400 pounds? Good to go! IOW, you weren’t around at the time and don’t know what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/28 "2014-10-25T03:21:13Z")
Neither of my brothers were drafted, nor were any of my cousins. Just the luck of the draw. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/29 "2014-10-25T04:14:23Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > You can order a copy of Bob Dylan’s classification record from the [Selective Service System](http://www.sss.gov/RECORDS2.HTM). (Dylan was in Hibbing, Minnesota, when he first registered for the draft.) Maybe not. I recently tried to order my own Selective Service records (from that same era), and got a letter back stating that very little of the records from those days has been retained, with only very sketchy information remaining. Fortunately for me, I was classified 4-F – and yet to this day, I never found out exactly why. I only ever knew why in a very general way. I was trying to get my record to learn more about it, and they say that only a cursory outline of that record still exists. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/30 "2014-10-25T06:05:34Z")
I suspect Elvis getting drafted at age 23 was more political than the draft board in Memphis, TN, using up all their 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 year olds. Even if he was still registered in Tupelo. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/31 "2014-10-25T06:46:33Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Remember that of 8 million Vietnam era vets, only > > 2 million > > were draftees. The rest were volunteers. > > (Yes, some were coerced… service or jail time. Still, VN was not the war of the draftees as some try to portray it.) Maybe true, but I assure that even those of us who did not get drafted thought about it all the time. And let me note that this thread is almost old enough to be drafted. ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/32 "2014-10-25T09:18:27Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Maybe not. I recently tried to order my own Selective Service records (from that same era), and got a letter back stating that very little of the records from those days has been retained, with only very sketchy information remaining. > > Fortunately for me, I was classified 4-F – and yet to this day, I never found out exactly why. I only ever knew why in a very general way. I was trying to get my record to learn more about it, and they say that only a cursory outline of that record still exists. That’s good news for me since when I reported to army offices in Whitehall Street early one morning in 1968 I was evidently lacking pencil-dexterity and proceeded, through sheer destiny of pencil, to check as positive every single box under diseases, drugs, sexual deviancy, others, then some others. Sadly, after a brief visit to the office of the army’s Austrian-accented-shrink, I kid you not, I was placed on the Group W bench and sent home, too early to participate in the subsequent mass striptease and physical manipulations. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/33 "2014-10-25T14:57:53Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And let me note that this thread is almost old enough to be drafted. I do not want to live in any country where seven-year-olds get drafted. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/34 "2014-10-25T16:12:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I do not want to live in any country where seven-year-olds get drafted. :eek: [Munro](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054100/) was only Four! ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/35 "2014-10-25T16:19:49Z")
The [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_(1969)) page on the draft lottery is messy. It’s hard to tell how far down they went. Apparently they called for physicals down to numbers 195 the first year. Maybe later years they got into the low 200s. So a better than 50-50 chance of even being called in, but presumably far less than that to be inducted. Note that when the college deferment was in force, the number of years eligible for drafting afterwards was increased more than than the number of years spent in college. (And some boards targeted the Joe Colleges.) So some guys opted to not apply for the deferment and take their chances. The note above about relatives not being drafted got me thinking. I can’t think of a single relative that was drafted post-Korean war\*. So the presumption that most guys got drafted shouldn’t be made. I remember talking around the coffee machine with the other profs in my small department years ago about how we each avoided getting drafted. We all had different stories. E.g., one guy got a job with a defense contractor and was exempted under having a job vital to national defense. I hit a big number in the lottery. And on and on. Elvis and Conrad Birdie were just unlucky. - Oops, thought of one. And I just had dinner with him a couple months ago. Oh, well. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/36 "2014-10-25T16:35:07Z")
Dylan wasn’t drafted because no one wanted to send a unit into battle with a guy who kept muttering “There must be some kind of way out of here.” ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/37 "2014-10-25T16:39:52Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Zappa was exempt from the draft as a convicted felon. (He was popped on a trumped-up morals charge in 1964–an undercover officer solicited a “sex tape” from him–and did 10 days in jail and three years’ probation.) Hmmm. Was it Burnt Weenie Sandwich or Uncle Meat? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/38 "2014-10-25T18:17:49Z")
Zappa: According to wiki, the felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor: > **[Frank Zappa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa#Early_1960s:_Studio_Z)** > > Frank Vincent Zappa\[nb 1\] (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and a... ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/39 "2014-10-25T19:12:12Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Remember that of 8 million Vietnam era vets, only > > 2 million > > were draftees. The rest were volunteers. > > (Yes, some were coerced… service or jail time. Still, VN was not the war of the draftees as some try to portray it.) Keep in mind that “era” word though. The military was still doing its normal Cold War job and of those 8 million or so who served during the Vietnam years only about 3 million actually got sent to southeast Asia. As a draftee you were much more likely to actually get sent to Vietnam and much more likely to actually see combat there, especially later in the war. Volunteering instead of getting drafted became a common way to try to get a quiet job in Germany or at least some sort of support role in country where you wouldn’t be constantly under fire. It’s also a little misleading to go all the way back to 1964 on some of these statistics. The stats are something like 25% of total forces in Vietnam were draftees (and 30% of the dead) and only about 40% of draftees got sent to Vietnam. But the thing is that early in the war, there were still career military and other enthusiastic types who were volunteering for active combat, and so if you were drafted from roughly 64-67 you had a pretty good chance of being able to wrangle one of those cushy posts somewhere else. As things started to break down post-Tet and the escalations started, the statistics gradually turned around 180 degrees, with most volunteers wanting to avoid going to 'Nam and draftees started being thrown into combat roles much more commonly. So at the time when Dylan might have been drafted earlier in the era, they probably would have sent him mumbling off to Germany or something. But during the height of the anti-war movement in the late 60’s and early 70’s, if you got drafted you were almost certainly going to Vietnam and you had a pretty good chance of seeing combat. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/40 "2014-10-25T19:34:07Z")
> [@WynS](#): > > my x was exempted because he didn’t weigh enough. Weight? Yeah that’s crazy, but back then you had to pass a medical exam. Maybe Dylan didn’t pass that part of it. He’s one skinny dude, and my first thought was that he doesn’t weigh enough. I don’t know about Vietnam, but when I enlisted, the Army was pretty serious about underweight people. There was a tape test for those who were overweight, to check your BMI and see if your weight was actually muscle, and even if you failed that, it was still possible to get a waiver if you were just a couple of pounds overweight, and you had no other waivers. But if you were underweight, that was it, no options. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631.md?page=3)