Steve McQueen
“All in all, despite my problems, I liked my time in the Marines,” Steve McQueen once said. After a rough early life, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1947. But McQueen was inclined toward disobedience, to put it mildly, and he was demoted seven times. After a weekend pass turned into a two-week “vacation” of his own making, he was arrested, which earned him some time in the brig. During that period, he decided to reform himself. Later, McQueen was training in the Arctic when the ship he was on hit a sandbank. Several tanks and their crews were thrown into the water and many drowned, but McQueen was able to rescue five men.
Pat Sajak
Before “Wheel of Fortune,” Pat Sajak worked as a DJ on Armed Forces Radio — and he sometimes felt bad for how easy he had it. “I used to feel a bit guilty about my relatively soft duty,” he said. “After all, I was billeted (lodged) in a hotel, and there were plenty of nice restaurants around. But I always felt a little better when I met guys who came into town from the field and thanked us for bringing them a little bit of home.”
Bill Cosby
Long before Bill Cosby played Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, the funny-yet-firm TV dad, and even longer before his April 2018 conviction for sexual assault, he was a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman. From 1956 through 1960, Cosby served aboard ships and at the Bethesda Naval hospital where he worked with Korean War casualties. He was honorably discharged, and in 2011 he was given the title of honorary chief petty officer. The Navy has since revoked the title, citing the allegations that led to Cosby’s court troubles and stating that they conflict with the Navy’s core values.