Wayne did his best and had no reason to be ashamed of his lack of service.
I remember my parents had four kids and Daddy was a Farmer which was a needed civilian position yet he stil got drafted.
Actually I think Daddy enjoyed the army tho he had several close brushes with death while in the combat engineers. He said the food was good and the pay with Mother getting an allotment for herself and the children plus Daddy sent his paycheck home too was good money. Mother saved over $4,000.00 while he was in the army.
When you consider that daddy was farming with a single horse pulling a plow nearly every day, the army was easy life except when they were building bridges under fire etc.
He didn’t need the paycheck as he got everything he needed from the army and sold his cigaret ration for more money than he needed. Daddy brought home a luger, a P-38, an Austro -Hungarian .32 auto. a puma knive and some expensive perfume from Paris for Mother.
I later learned the army gave the perfume to the soldiers to use as gifts to the girls when they visited Paris. My father being married just kept it for his wife. I can remember that perfume and it was clearly expensive stuff just judging from the bottle and packaging.
Super story, and what a marriage they seemed to have.
That P-38 is a nice plane. Lucky man. ;)