Jimi Hendrix - Military Service

Military Service

Law enforcement authorities twice caught Hendrix riding in stolen cars. Given a choice between spending two years in prison or joining the Army, Hendrix chose the latter and enlisted on May 31, 1961. After completing basic training at Fort Ord near Monterey in California, the Army assigned him to the 101st Airborne Division and stationed him in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Because Hendrix would often play his guitar late at night keeping other servicemen in his barracks awake, they would often take the guitar away and hide it from him. Hendrix eventually began to sleep with his guitar in order to keep it safe and one one occasion some servicemen bullied and beat him up over the guitar, which he protected more than himself.

One night in November 1962, fellow servicemen Billy Cox walked past the service club and heard Hendrix playing guitar inside. Cox, intrigued by the proficient playing immediately checked-out a bass guitar and the two began to jam. Soon after, Cox and Hendrix began performing at the base clubs on the weekends with other musicians in a loosely organized band called the Casuals. This was a loyal friendship that Hendrix called upon from April 1969 until shortly before his death.

After he had served only one year, Captain Gilbert Batchman granted Private Hendrix an honourable discharge on the basis of unsuitability on June 29, 1962. The National Personnel Records Centre contain 98 pages documenting Hendrix's army service, including his numerous infractions. Hendrix later spoke about his military service and his first parachuting experience: "once you get out there everything is so quiet, all you hear is the breezes-s-s-s." In interviews with Melody Maker in 1967 and 1969, he spoke of his dislike of the army. He also claimed to reporters that he had received a medical discharge after breaking his ankle during his 26th parachute jump.