Questioned about that account some thirty years later (by which time Nugent was known as a staunch political conservative, a supporter of the Republican Party, and an advocate of hunting and gun ownership rights) in an interview with the UK’s
Independent newspaper, Nugent disclaimed that previous account of his draft-evading activities as story he had made up and fed to a gullible
High Times reporter and asserted that he actually had avoided the draft through the legitimate means of a student deferment:
He has the rage, but he doesn’t have the war record. At 18, he was called up to serve in Vietnam. “In 1977 you gave an interview to High Times [the cannabis user’s journal of record] where you claimed you defecated in your clothes to avoid the draft.”
“I never **** my pants to get out of the draft,” says Nugent, good-naturedly.
“You also told them you took crystal meth before the medical — as a result of which, and I quote: ‘I got this big juicy 4F.'”
“Unbelievable. Meth,” he replies, in a tone of deep sarcasm. “Yes, that’s my drug of choice. You’ve got to realise that these interviewers would arrive with glazed eyes and I would make stories up. I never did crystal meth. And I never pooped my pants.”
“But you did dodge the draft.”
“I had a 1Y [student deferment]. I enrolled at Oakland Community College.”
“You said then that you wanted ‘to teach the stupid bastards in the military a lesson’. I’d have thought you’d have loved the army. Guns. Travel. Danger.”
“Back then, I didn’t even understand what World War II was.”
“So basically,” — I admit that I have, unaccountably, started to speak Nugent — “you didn’t want to get your Michigan ass blown off in Vietnam.”
“Correct. I did not want to get my ass blown off in Vietnam.”