Did Bruce Springsteen Dodge the Military Draft? Inside the Rumors

With a career spanning decades, Bruce Springsteen is one of music’s biggest stars, as his music has kept fans continuously entertained. However, such as the case with celebrities, there are often questions about their backgrounds outside of music that linger — and for Bruce, it’s whether or not he dodged the military draft.

Per UPI, in an April 2017 interview with Tom Hanks, Bruce shared his lingering feelings about dodging the draft during Vietnam, which inspired him to write, “Born in the USA.”

"I had some friends, very close friends of mine ... Guys who came home in wheelchairs and, then, I didn't go. I was a stone-cold draft dodger," he said while speaking with Tom at the Tribeca Film Festival. "I pulled the whole 'Alice's Restaurant.' 'I'm sorry, sir. I don't understand what you are saying because I am high on LSD.’”

“I did everything in the draft-dodger's textbook," Bruce revealed. "So, perhaps, I felt guilty about that later on. I had friends who went. I had friends who went and died. I had friends later on who were seriously hurt.”

“And whether it was that or whether it was just the fact it was an event that defined a generation and if you were going to write about the world, if you were going to write about who we are at this particular moment, if you were going to write about your place, if you were going to try to seize your little moment in history, which were all things I wanted to deliver to my audience, it was something that needed to be reckoned with. ... And, so, it was something that I felt I had to come to terms with myself and I needed to sing about," the Grammy winner said.

In a 1984 interview with Rolling Stone, he gave a detailed explanation of the injuries that happened just before he would have been drafted.

“I got a 4-F. I had a brain concussion from a motorcycle accident when I was 17,” he told the outlet at the time. “Plus, I did the basic '60s rag, you know: fillin' out the forms all crazy, not takin' the tests. When I was 19, I wasn't ready to be that generous with my life. I was called for induction, and when I got on the bus to go take my physical, I thought one thing: I ain't goin'.”

“And it was funny, because my father, he was in World War II, and he was the type that was always sayin', ‘Wait till the Army gets you. Man, they're gonna get that hair off of you. I can't wait. They gonna make a man outta you,’” he said.

“I was gone for three days, and when I came back, I went in the kitchen, and my folks were there, and they said, ‘Where you been?’ And I said, ‘Well, I had to go take my physical.’ And they said, ‘What happened?’ And I said, ‘Well, they didn't take me.’ And my father sat there, and he didn't look at me, he just looked straight ahead. And he said, ‘That's God.’ It was, uh ... I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that,” Bruce recalled.