Hendrix used Gay Ruse to Avoid 'Nam

[WI_DEM]

Jimi Hendrix might have stayed in the army. He might have been sent to Vietnam. Instead he pretended to be gay. And with that, he was discharged from the 101st Airborne in 1962...

So says the author of a new biography of Jimi Hendrix, "Room Full of Mirrors"

http://entertainment.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=197732

All I can say is good for him.

[Eric J in MN]

1. I doubt he was trying to avoid Vietnam in 1962.

We didn't have a lot of troops there in 1962.

If he had served in the military for years, he might have been sent there eventually, but avoding Vietnam probably wan't his intent.

[sleipnir]

2. Well, he was also in favor of the war.

That's also coming out. He was a rabid anti-communist. Just goes to show, don't judge a book by its cover. It seems that Mr. Hendrix wasn't all flower power and peace after all. Not that he was promoting the war, no, but secretly he was in favor of Vietnam. A shade cooler than Toby Keith, to use a modern reference.

[H2O Man]

5. Really?

Odd, his songs about the war are definitely not "pro-war." And his contributions to anti-war efforts were pretty well-known. Do you have any serious evidence of his pro-war feelings/actions?

Also, the things the author mentioned in the OP are not at all what others who were there have said. But, as John Kerry found out, one's military career can become the stuff of rumors many years later. As others have pointed out, the dates alone expose it as nonsense.

[TomClash]

3. In 1962

Hendrix was 19 years old and JFK, another "anti-communist," was President. This country has never been the same since JFK was shot.

[Octafish]

4. Hendrix was a fucking PARATROOPER.

He was injured on a jump and got a medical discharge.

The guy was in the U.S. Army.

Besides, how the fuck would he know how to write "Machine Gun?"