Editing Howlin' Wolf (section)

===Military service, 1940s===

On April 9, 1941, he was inducted into the U.S. Army and was stationed at several bases around the country. Years later, he stated that the plantation workers in the Delta had alerted military authorities because he refused to work in the fields. He was assigned to the [[9th Cavalry Regiment]], which was famous for being one of the units dubbed "[[Buffalo Soldiers]]". Burnett was first sent to [[Pine Bluff, Arkansas]], for basic training, and was given long hours performing menial work. Then he was transferred to [[Camp Blanding]], in [[Starke, Florida]], where he was assigned to the kitchen patrol. During the day he would cook food for the enlisted soldiers, and at night he would play the guitar in the assembly room. Burnett was later sent to [[Fort Gordon]] in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], and he would play his guitar on the steps of the mess hall, which is where a young [[James Brown]], who came to the Fort nearly every day to earn money shining shoes and performing buck dances for the troops, first heard him play.<ref name="How The Wolf Got Caged">{{cite web |last1=St. Clair |first1=Jeffrey |title=The Army Ain't No Place for a Black Man |url=https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/24/the-army-aint-no-place-for-a-black-man-how-the-wolf-got-caged/ |website=CounterPunch |date=May 24, 2019 |access-date=September 9, 2022}}</ref>

Burnett was then sent to a tutoring camp in [[Tacoma, Washington]], where he was in charge of decoding communications. Because Burnett was functionally illiterate, having never received formal education, he was repeatedly beaten by the drill instructor for reading and spelling errors. Soon, he began having uncontrollable shaking fits, dizzy spells, fainting, and also began experiencing mental confusion.<ref name="Howling Wolf">{{cite web |title=Howling Wolf |url=http://medicinthegreentime.com/howling-wolf/ |website=Medic in the Green Time |access-date=September 9, 2022}}</ref>

Burnett participated in the [[Louisiana Maneuvers]] in 1941, where one of the earliest photographs of him was taken cleaning the [[Frog (horse anatomy)|frog]] of a horse's hoof.<ref name="10 Things You Didn't Know About Howlin' Wolf">{{cite web |last1=Nash |first1=JD |title=10 Things You Didn't Know About Howlin' Wolf |url=https://www.americanbluesscene.com/2021/06/10-things-didnt-know-howlin-wolf/ |website=American Blues Scene |date=June 10, 2021 |access-date=September 8, 2022 |archive-date=July 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719214318/https://www.americanbluesscene.com/2021/06/10-things-didnt-know-howlin-wolf/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1943, he was evaluated at an Army mental hospital. In November 1943, Burnett was found unfit for duty and given an honorable discharge on November 3. Recalling his experiences in the Army years later, Burnett stated, "The Army ain't no place for a black man. Jus' couldn't take all that bossin' around, I guess. The Wolf's his own boss."<ref name="Howling Wolf"/>

He returned to his family, which had recently moved near [[West Memphis, Arkansas]], and helped with the farming while also performing, as he had done in the 1930s, with Floyd Jones and others. In 1948 he formed a band, which included the guitarists Willie Johnson and [[Matt Murphy (blues guitarist)|Matt "Guitar" Murphy]], the harmonica player [[Junior Parker]], a pianist remembered only as "Destruction" and the drummer Willie Steele. Radio station [[KWAM|KWEM]] in West Memphis began broadcasting his live performances, and he occasionally sat in with Williamson on [[KFFA (AM)|KFFA]] in [[Helena, Arkansas]].