Book: Hendrix used gay ruse to avoid 'Nam

[kweerwolf]

Jimi Hendrix might have stayed in the Army. He might have been sent to Vietnam. Instead, he pretended he was gay. And with that, he was discharged from the 101st Airborne in 1962, launching a musical career that would redefine the guitar, leave other rock heroes of the day speechless and culminate with his headlining performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock in 1969.

Hendrix's subterfuge, contained in his military medical records, is revealed for the first time in Charles R. Cross' new biography, "Room Full of Mirrors." Publicly, Hendrix always claimed he was discharged after breaking his ankle on a parachute jump, but his medical records do not mention such an injury.

In regular visits to the base psychiatrist at Fort Campbell, Ky., in spring 1962, Hendrix complained that he was in love with one of his squad mates and that he had become addicted to masturbating, Cross writes. Finally, Capt. John Halbert recommended him for discharge, citing his "homosexual tendencies."

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/12275794.htm

Hmmm ... Maybe the lyrics really were "'scuse me while I kiss this guy ..."

[Ian David]

1. Addicted to masturbating and "recommended him for discharge"

I think he was discharging enough.

[Gildor Inglorion]

2. Well, of COURSE they were!

Nobody in his/her right mind ever thought it was "kiss the sky."

:*

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

3. Here's what I don't get: why do we presume Hendrix was lying? Maybe he WAS

gay. Maybe he was bisexual.

Anyone familiar with Hendrix' life (as I am) knows that there is evidence that he was almost probably not exclusively hetero.

Hendrix apparently never SAID he was "gay" or "homosexual". He said he was in love with one of his squad mates. So what? So it's valid to say that he had homosexual tendencies.

Whether or not he was a "womanizer" as the article claims is, IMO, completely, utterly irrelevant. That plays into the whole "you're either gay or you're straight" nonsense.

[AlwaysQuestion]

5. Whatever it takes

Doesn't much matter if he was gay. What's important to me is that he managed to receive a discharge from the service. If he wasn't gay but convinced the shrinks that he was, even better--using the irrational institutional mindset of the military against itself is a personal victory.

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

6. Well, his discharge appears to have been involuntary after

a Capt. Halbert recommended him for discharge. So how can Hendrix' confessions to the camp psychiatrist (which most patients presume to be confidential but apparently got back to the captain) about homosexual attractions to another soldier be a ruse? Occam's razor (about the simplest explanation being the most likely for a set of circumstances in which an explicit explanation is absent) would suggest that this notion (of it being a ruse, rather than the simple truth) is hogwash.

And it appears (from this story, at least) that the only basis upon which the author of this book relies in order to claim that Hendrix could not have been gay (despite his confession to a psychiatrist) was his "legendary appetite for women." I'm curious to know if the author considered the notion that Hendrix was likely bisexual, that he DID have homosexual tendencies, that it wasn't just a "ruse"?

If Hendrix was gay or bisexual, it would matter to me to know that - it would be a personality of some cultural importance to whom those with homosexual tendencies could point and say, Hendrix was bisexual or maybe even gay, he wasn't this queen-thing like on those silly TV shows - he was fairly normal.

[dsc]

8. They wrote primers on pretending to be gay back then

and I would imagine that one of the big do's was to pretend to fight the discharge. I am not saying he necessarily was lying, in point of fact his lying about the reason for his discharge tends to say he had been truthful then, but he sure could have lied.

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

9. Oh, I didn't know that

thanks for the info. (I'm still pretty certain he was at least bisexual, based upon the available common knowledge about his life of which I am aware.)

[OneBlueSky]

4. good for him! . . . You Go, Jimi! . . . :) n/t

.

[SeanQuinn]

7. Jimi was a pioneer for rock 'n roll and a pioneer in LGBT rights, maybe?

You never know.

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

10. And while there may have been primers back then re:getting out on gay ruse

it would be interesting to see if such primers existed at the time of Hendrix' discharge, because if they hadn't been written yet, then it could be said that Hendrix' ruse was innovative, at the very least:

>>Finally, Capt John Halbert recommended him for discharge, citing his “homosexual tendencies” – four years before Arlo Guthrie suggested that path for avoiding military service in the protest song, Alice’s Restaurant.<<

http://www.bravewords.com/news.html?id=30848