# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/41 "2014-10-25T19:45:18Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > 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. Yes, but have you rehabilitated yourself, Kid? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/42 "2014-10-25T21:47:36Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > 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? I am not certain, but when I was a student in the mid 1950s, I heard a story of a grad student who was from Mississippi. When he asked for a student deferment it was granted immediately because his draft board had never had another registrant who had gone to grad school. ---
**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, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/43 "2014-10-25T22:00:57Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > 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. We had one guy on our hall who was very short and very thin, and he was dieting to try to get under the weight limit. Dylan was much, much bigger than him. I was really thin then also, but nowhere near where I’d have to be to get a 4F. ---
**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, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/44 "2014-10-25T22:05:52Z")
[Phil Ochs’ Instruction Manual on Draft Avoidance.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFOUkipI4U) ---
**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, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/45 "2014-10-25T22:07:11Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I do not want to live in any country where seven-year-olds get drafted. :eek: It’s 19 in thread years. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/46 "2014-10-25T22:11:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > [Phil Ochs’ Instruction Manual on Draft Avoidance.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFOUkipI4U) Cf. [Allan Sherman’s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPKHwaJCDf0). ---
**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, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/47 "2014-10-25T22:37:46Z")
That’s true about the flat feet. If your feet were [pronated](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Adult_Flatfoot.JPG/1024px-Adult_Flatfoot.JPG) [not safe for lunch image warning], you were automatically exempt, and the condition was more common until children started to be treated with special shoe inserts for it, which started aggressively in the 1970s. However, there is also a condition where people just have [very low insteps](http://www.triadfoot.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/flat-feet_342x198_ABN1BX.jpg), and extra fat pads in their plantar region, so the bottoms of their feet look flat. It isn’t the same as the over-pronation problem, but people who did inductions had a five minute lecture on how to recognize “flat feet,” so people with flat arches, but no problem with over-pronation, were often DXed-- that is, declared unfit for service. Pronation is a real problem, and children who have it can have all kinds of secondary problems-- the [high ankle leather on baby shoes that were common through the 1970s](http://www.shoebuy.com/pi/josmo/lg/josmo133785_71607_lg.jpg) was there to prevent it, before better kinds of devices were developed. You didn’t want people with over-pronation marching long distances, or running in boots, etc. People with low arches weren’t a problem, but the military didn’t get this straightened out for a long time, and thousands of recruits were rejected for flat, but healthy, feet. I feel kinda weird now. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/48 "2014-10-25T22:41:22Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > 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.” I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s boot camp no more. ---
**Author:** ![RiffDigger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ea924/32.png) [@RiffDigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiffDigger)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/49 "2021-08-23T03:33:38Z")
I’ve read all the potential theories. Here’s my take. Dylan loves to mask the truth, even play with the truth as in his early beginnings to the media and people he met. Maybe he was called to appear in front of the draft board. He could have checked off in the box, that he liked men and later fooled the board psychiatrist. This was an insider ruse that was shared at the time. It was what a terrified David Geffin (Asylum Records) used when his early career was taking off at the William Morris Agency. Jimi Hendrix later used the same tactic. Some things we just never learn about. Neil Young came out in a recent autobiography and proudly admitted that it was arranged by his record company to buy a Green Card in 1969 for $10,000. Here he was in a supergroup but as a Canadian he was being harassed by the West Hollywood Sheriffs for driving with Ontario license plates and not having a California Driver’s License. “The Green Card was real, it worked. American Capitalism at it’s best.” Neil proudly wrote. My point is -that the ruse was one way of getting out of going to Viet Nam and Dylan like David Geffin was just clever enough to pull it off. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/50 "2021-08-23T03:58:16Z")
> [@RiffDigger](#): > > Jimi Hendrix later used the same tactic. Cite? [Hendrix enlisted in 1961 and received a general but honorable discharge the following year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix#Military_service) for disciplinary issues, so I can’t imagine that having to avoid the draft would have been necessary for him. > [@](#): > > It was what a terrified David Geffin (Asylum Records) used when his early career was taking off at the William Morris Agency. David Geffen is [gay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Geffen#Personal_life), so it’s not like he would’ve been lying about it. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/51 "2021-08-23T04:03:06Z")
> [@RiffDigger](#): > > Jimi Hendrix later used the same tactic. Where did you hear that? Jimi Hendrix _enlisted_ in the army in 1961 when he was 18 years old (to avoid prison time). When would he have avoided being drafted? ---
**Author:** ![RiffDigger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ea924/32.png) [@RiffDigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiffDigger)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/52 "2021-08-23T13:52:50Z")
The Geffin documentary is on Netflix. Recommended. Geffin replied to the Psychiatrist, “Well, (I want to serve) …so many men…” Immediately out of the draft. To cite the Hendrix incident I’d have to go though about 11 Hendrix books to find it, plus other books like the Eric Burdon autobiography to locate it. Hendrix slept with Miles Davis’s wife and even Manager Chas Chandler’s wife which did not please either Miles or Chas. It would take me several hours to cite that tidbit. Thank you for your query. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/53 "2021-08-23T14:33:03Z")
While this thread has been necro’d twice since it was started 14 years ago, I think it could be worth emphasizing: **For the entirety of the span of years 1963-1973** you were never more likely to be drafted than not-drafted, as a rule. So the simplest explanation for why any “random person of draft age” from 1963 to 1973 was not drafted is often: they weren’t drafted. As mentioned previously in the thread, less than half the draft age population would actually be medically/psychiatrically/morally eligible, and some were already in the military, but even then the numbers per year were never more than 50% of the people who were eligible. A breakdown of actual inductions per year: 1963 - 119,265 1964 - 112,386 1965 - 230,991 1966 - 382,010 1967 - 228,263 1968 - 296,406 1969 - 283,586 1970 - 162,746 1971 - 94,092 1972 - 49,514 1973 - 646 With caveats, all the conscription done in the 20th century, your odds of being conscripted went down the older you were. Bob Dylan was 24 years old in 1965–the beginning of the “peak” draft years for Vietnam. By 1969 which was kind of the tail end of the peak, he would’ve been 28. While tons of people have stories about how they avoided the draft through sketchy means, and tons more had genuine disqualifiers, sans available evidence it’s actually likely he was just not drafted, no special story necessary. ---
**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:** [August 23, 2021, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/54 "2021-08-23T18:07:43Z")
> [@RiffDigger](#): > > He could have checked off in the box, that he liked men and later fooled the board psychiatrist. As I said above, I went through the draft process and I don’t remember any such box. Because there wasn’t any. An affirmative statement had to be made and the Army often required testimonials from partners. Such a statement could and would be used against you since almost all professions barred gays. If somebody as famous as Dylan made a public declaration that he was a practicing homosexual, it would never have stayed secret for 60 years. Same for Jimi Hendrix - who couldn’t possibly have been drafted in the first place since he was an Army veteran. Where are you getting your “takes” from? ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/55 "2021-08-23T22:05:04Z")
I read somewhere once that “It Ain’t Me Babe” was directed at the service… “to defend you and protect you, whether you are right or wrong…” etc. Interesting interpretation. ---
**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:** [August 23, 2021, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/56 "2021-08-23T22:18:06Z")
Dylan’s mysterious lyrics are calculated to make people read things into them like a Rorschach test. About the only song that has near-universal agreement is this one, with almost all saying it was about his estranged girlfriend Suze Rotolo. Sure, anyone can interpret anything in any way, but making it about the military, in 1964, seems deliberately counterfactual. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/57 "2021-08-23T22:28:51Z")
Tom Paxton served in the army. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/58 "2021-08-23T22:54:01Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > **For the entirety of the span of years 1963-1973** you were never more likely to be drafted than not-drafted, as a rule. Right - as mentioned earlier, this is not a system of universal service: the US has never really had one of those. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/59 "2021-08-26T12:55:32Z")
The Confederacy did, right? ---
**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:** [August 26, 2021, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631/60 "2021-08-26T15:14:12Z")
This is a yes, but. Yes, in 1862 the Confederate Congress passed a universal service law for men 18-35. But a large number of occupations deemed necessary at home were exempted. And for a year after passage, they allowed substitutes from the exempt list to be hired for $300 to serve for those called. (The exemptions actually made Confederation conscription less strict than the Union’s, although it too allowed hiring subs, mostly Irish immigrants) As the war got worse and those illegally claiming exemptions soared, their Congress repealed or amended the laws to bring more bodies in. Basically, every ideal they had in 1861 got tossed by reality so it’s hard to say categorically what the Confederacy did or didn’t do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exempted-bob-dylan-from-military-service/406631.md?page=4)