TODAY IN ROCK AND ROLL HISTORY - 05/31/1961
TODAY IN ROCK AND ROLL HISTORY - 05/31/1961
Jimi Hendrix officially enlisted in the United States Army and was sent to Fort Ord, California to complete eight weeks of basic training. From there he would he assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. He would be honorably discharged on June 29th, 1962. The story of him leaving the military after breaking his ankle following a parachute jump has been brought into question by his fellow soldiers, who said that Hendrix fabricated the event
I’d never heard the story about his discharge had been disputed by unit, interesting.
Did he lie about how he broke his ankle to get the discharge, or did he lie about the discharge being related to his ankle?
Not that changes anything, just curious.
There’s lots of conflicting information online about it, but nothing completely verifiable, at least not that I could find. There’s speculation that he never completed any parachute jumps, there’s speculation that he lied about the injury, there’s even speculation that he claimed he developed homosexual tendencies in order to obtain his discharge. The only thing verified is that he received an honorable discharge, having finished just 12 months of his 36-month enlistment.
He had more significant things to do with his life. Whatever, good for him. It worked for a lot of big-shots' kids. During Vietnam, Bush Jr. spent two years in the Texas Air Nation Guard. During Vietnam, Trump got deferred for bad feet or college 5 times.