John Coltrane
John Coltrane’s first recording on the alto saxophone was made in July 1946 while he was a member of the U.S. Navy. Coltrane had enlisted in the Navy on August 6, 1945, one day after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. In late 1945, he was shipped to Pearl Harbor as an apprentice seaman. He joined the base swing band and became one of few servicemen in the Navy who served as musicians without having a musicians’ rating. Because the band had only white members, Coltrane played as a “guest performer.”
Adam Driver
Adam Driver, the actor from the HBO series “Girls” and the new “Star Wars” franchise, actually had a stint in the U.S. Marine Corps. 9-11 jolted him into action, and he says that he and his friends all agreed they needed to join after that horrific terrorist attack. Ultimately, he was the only one that actually did. He thrived in the military and felt a sense of unity with his fellow marines. He even created “Arts in the Armed Forces” (AITAF), a non-profit that performs theater for all branches of the military. He liked the discipline the Marine Corps provides and looked forward to deploying, but after serving for more than two years, he injured his sternum mountain biking and was medically discharged before ever seeing any action.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The famous novelist and short story writer F. Scott Fitzgerald may be best known for his novel “The Great Gatsby,” but what you may not know is that he dropped out of Princeton University when World War I started and took a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Thinking of the possibility of his death, he was motivated to write in all of his off hours, hoping he could still leave behind a literary legacy. Fitzgerald never did make it to battle though, as the 1918 Armistice was signed just before he was set to be shipped out. His time in the service did produce a draft of what would become his hit debut novel “This Side of Paradise.”