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Claim: The composer-performer of the patriotic song God Bless the USA fled to Canada to avoid being drafted to serve in the Vietnam War.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1999]
Origins: When the ground combat phase of the Persian Gulf War brought about Iraq's surrender in a startlingly short one hundred hours in 
February 1991, one could hardly watch television or listen to the radio without hearing the stirringly patriotic song God Bless the USA, written and performed by country artist Lee Greenwood, at least once a day. (Greenwood was the Country Music Association's award for Male Vocalist of the Year in 1983 and 1984, and his God Bless the USA had been awarded the CMA's Song of the Year honors in 1985.) As a result, the song become even more firmly entrenched as staple background music for Persian Gulf War retrospectives, Independence Day celebrations, and Memorial Day and Veterans Day remembrance ceremonies, and it has undergone another resurgence in popularity since the terrorist attacks of
The song has taken Greenwood to the flight decks of aircraft carriers and the cockpits of fighter planes and earned him a special award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. He has met five presidents, cashed in on big-dollar corporate appearances and performed at every imaginable type of sporting event. And after the
In case you're not an American who now has the lyrics permanently embedded in his brain, here they are:
If tomorrow all the things were gone
It didn't take long for the rumor to begin that Lee Greenwood, who was reaping acclaim (and royalties) for his modern day American anthem, was actually a draft dodger who fled the USA for Canada in order to avoid being drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. It doesn't take much familiarity with urban legends to see
I'd worked for all my life And I had to start again With just my children and my wife I'd thank my lucky stars To be living here today 'Cause the flag still stands for freedom And they can't take that away. I'm proud to be an American Where at least I know I'm free, And I won't forget the men who died Who gave that right to me, And I gladly stand up next to you And defend her still today, 'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God Bless the U.S.A. From the lakes of Minnesota To the hills of Tennessee, Across the plains of Texas From sea to shining sea. From Detroit down to Houston And New York to L.A., There's pride in every American heart And it's time we stand and say: REPEAT CHORUS
Lee Greenwood was born on
It angers me when I hear this. I never served in the military because I had children at the age of 17. I was given the classification 3A. The draft never got to that #. If it had, like my father, I would have left my wife and children (for I know they would have understood) to fight and die if necessary for my country.
(A 3-A classification was a hardship deferment given to an eligible male if "service would cause hardship upon his family.")
A Los Angeles Times article about Greenwood noted that he is familiar with the experience of a father's going off to war while leaving a wife and children at home, but from the other side:
He says his parents divorced after his mother grew bitter because his father went off to serve in World War II despite having two toddlers at home.
Greenwood may not fit the image of the super patriot who rushes out to enlist and serve his country during wartime (the song isn't written from the point of view of someone who claims to have made sacrifices for his country — it's an expression of gratitude towards those who did make sacrifices to protect the freedoms the rest of us enjoy), but very few celebrities do live up to the expectations created by those who project the artist into his work. (Stephen Crane, for example, wrote quite convincingly of the horrors of war without having experienced them first-hand, but The Red Badge of Courage is no less a masterpiece of literature — and Crane is no less an author <— because of that.) Unfortunately, all too often those who don't live up to some unrealistic standard are tainted with claims of being the very opposite of the images the public has manufactured for them. His lasting youthful impression of the military, though, is the respect he saw directed at soldiers and their uniforms. "When they hitchhiked on the highways, people would always give them rides; they were honored by people," he remembers. Last updated: 14 May 2007 This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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