By CHAD GARLAND | STARS AND STRIPES Published: December 30, 2020
Recruit Jerome J. Garcia’s staunch resistance to the strictures of military life six decades ago got him discharged just months into his enlistment.
Five years later, he founded the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia would go on to be the namesake of both a pot brand and an ice cream flavor.
It may seem obvious in retrospect that the founder of one of the biggest psychedelic rock jam bands of the 1960s wouldn't have been cut out to serve “the man,” and his commanding officer made that clear in a December 1960 discharge recommendation.