The National Guard doesn’t take much time away from normal work as long a so your deployed except for during initial or basic training and MOS training. So as an actor it would be fairly easy to stay under contract and do recurring role in show, guest starring roles, and roles on episodic TV. What would have done as photographer/Combat Photographer in a National Guard unit that wasn’t sent to Vietnam?
shareInterestingly all three of the teen guys Wally, Eddie and Lumpy did hitches in the service as did Beaver a little later. Was Tony Dow a photographer in the service? I did not know that. But yeah, aside from your initial boot camp and additional training and one weekend per month and two weeks each summer the guard would not eat that much of your time to be honest. But the beginning training could be a major disruption to a career already in progress.
We saw that with other famous young men. Elvis. Gary Lewis. The guy who played Eugene as one of the original band of Barkley brothers on Big Valley. Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean missed out on some early success as he had to do military service and things got recorded as Jan and Arnie. Rocky B. from the Steelers comes to mind.
It was fairly common as a sign of those times. The Cold War and Vietnam pulled many many men into compulsory military duty.