Elvis Presley Enters The Army

1958

Elvis Presley goes to the Memphis Draft Board and enters the United States Army.

After wrapping up his movie King Creole, Elvis reports to the Memphis Draft Board and joins 12 other recruits on a bus bound for Kennedy Veterans Memorial Hospital before heading to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, where he takes on the real-life role as Private Presley. Hundreds swarm the fort to bid farewell to the freshly sheared star, but Elvis leaves his fame behind with his lost locks. Determined to be treated like any other G.I. Joe, he tells the press: "The Army can do anything it wants with me." Despite the devastating death of his mother, Gladys, from a heart attack that August, Elvis makes good on his promise during basic training. While stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, he commences advanced tank training and is soon shipped off to Friedberg, Germany, with the Third Armored 'Spearhead' Division. During his 18-month stint, Elvis is an exemplary soldier and earns medals for marksmanship in addition to sergeant's stripes. Unfortunately, he also picks up an amphetamine habit that will eventually contribute to his death. In the meantime, he meets 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, the stepdaughter of an Air Force captain, whom he'll marry in 1967. After two years of service, Sergeant Presley is honorably discharged from active duty on March 5, 1960. Of the experience, he tells Stars & Stripes magazine: "People were expecting me to mess up (laughs), to goof up in one way or another. They thought I couldn't take it and so forth, and I was determined to go to any limits to prove otherwise, not only to the people who were wondering, but to myself." Photo: National Archives