I would like to point out that John Wayne did NOT serve.
I presume you believe your comment to have some meaning.
Marion Morrison applied for admission to the Naval Academy in 1924 and was rejected. At the time of WWII he was 34 and classified as 3-A. Republic Pictures pressured Selective Service not to reclassify him as 1-A. All according to the book “John Wayne: American” by Randy Roberts and James Olson.
“Upon graduating from Glendale High School in 1925, Wayne applied to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, hoping to live out his dream of being a career Naval officer. He came close but was instead chosen the first alternate candidate.
By the start of World War II Wayne had been suffering for years from a badly torn shoulder muscle incurred in a body surfing accident that cost him his football scholarship at USC in 1927. He also had a bad back from performing his own stunts during ten years acting in “B” Westerns. Moreover, he suffered from a chronic ear infection, resulting from hours of underwater filming on Cecil B. De Mille’s Reap the Wild Wind in 1941. Had Wayne actually undergone a pre-induction physical, he might indeed have been classified 4-F.
According to Randy Roberts and James Olson’s top notch John Wayne American, as a married but separated father of four and thirty-four years old in 1942 Wayne was classified by the Selective Service as 3-A (deferred for family dependency). In 1944 as the U.S. Military feared a manpower shortage he was reclassified 1-A (draft eligible). There is no record that he disputed this reclassification but his employer, Republic Studios, did and requested he be given a 2-A classification (deferred in the national interest, i.e., war bond drives, visiting the troops, etc.). Selective Service records for World War II are spotty at best, many having been destroyed, but surviving records indicate these claims were filed “by another,” i.e. Republic Studio’s legal department. In fact, a letter from Republic Studios head Herbert Yates threatened to sue Wayne for breach of contract should he leave the studio for volunteer military service, though it is doubtful he would have carried through with the threat. But Wayne was indeed Republic’s biggest moneymaker during the war and that studio’s only “A” star at the time.
Yet, according to director John Ford’s grandson, in 1943 John Wayne tried to get a commission in the Marine Corps and get attached to Ford’s O.S.S. (the forerunner of the C.I.A.) Field Photographic Unit. In Pappy; the Life of John Ford, Dan Ford says emphatically “…that the billets were frozen in 1943. John (Ford) couldn’t get Wayne in as an enlisted man, much less an officer.”
For Duke; the Life and Image of John Wayne Ron Davis interviewed over seventy Wayne intimates including Jimmy Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Harry Carry Jr., Robert Stack and Gene Autry, who all served during World War II. He never noted criticism of Wayne on the draft issue from any of them.
There is a letter from Wayne to Ford in May of 1942 in the John Ford Papers at Indiana State University quoted by Davis in which Wayne practically begs his mentor to find a way for him to join up: “Have you any suggestions on how I should get in? Can you get me assigned to your outfit, and if you could, would you want me? How about the Marines? You have Army and Navy men under you. Have you any Marines or how about a Seabee or what would you suggest or would you? No I’m not drunk. I just hate to ask for favors, but for Christ sake you can suggest can’t you? No kidding, coach who’ll I see.” No response by Ford has yet surfaced but these don’t sound like the words of a man shirking his duty. Wayne’s sometimes secretary at Republic, Catalina Lawrence, remembered writing letters to various military officials inquiring about possible service during this time period.
There has always been a suspicion that Ford refused to intercede on Wayne‘s behalf because he knew that with so many other male “A” stars in uniform that his friend would have an excellent chance of becoming a major star.
THERE IS MORE HERE— http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2010/02/28/John-Wayne—World-War-II-and-the-Draft