“Scam” is an exaggeration. Your own Wikipedia link shows he declined a cushy entertainment position in Special Services. Twice. He completed the training, which he hated, and broke down in tears on multiple phone calls, describing his homesickness. As the most popular entertainer in the world at the time, he was of course given special privileges, but he was still a soldier. Soldiers have many duties and not all of them engage in direct combat. “Never winding up anywhere remotely near a battle” would have happened with anyone that famous (for political and strategic reasons), and certainly did for other rich, well-connected people…