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So what (if true)? The USNA is a four year gig. The war was over in three and a half years. Why didn't he follow the example of everyone from Tyrone Power to Desi Arnaz (who wasn't even a citizen) and just join?
He didn't even though older men with more children did. He stayed in Hollywood and got paid. No honor in that.
Admire his work but remember that his work was pretending to be something he wasn't.
War is a young mans game, as I found out in Viet Nam.
One more to add: Tyrone Power, captain and pilot in the USMC.
I realize this post is over 4 years old but just to straighten out the record for any future viewers. I found this in a biography of Duke written by Ronald Reagan. I trust that he wouldn’t have lied about it since he knew him personally.
When war broke out, John Wayne tried to enlist but was rejected because of an old football injury to his shoulder, his age (34), and his status as a married father of four. He flew to Washington to plead that he be allowed
to join the Navy but was turned down. So he poured himself into the war ffort by making insepirational war films - among them The Fighting Seabees, Back to Bataan and They Were Expendable. To those back home and others around the world he became a symbol of the determined American
fighting man.
Duke could not be kept from the front lines. In 1944 he spent three months touring forward positions in the Pacific theater. Appropriately, it was a wartime film, Sands of Iwo Jima which turned him into a superstar. Years after the war, when Emperor Hirohito of Japan visited the United States,he sought out John Wayne, paying tribute to the one who represented our nation’s success in combat.