Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam?

[demmiblue]

In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.

Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.

The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“I know it was a favor,” said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.

Elysa Braunstein said the implication from her father was that Mr. Trump did not have a disqualifying foot ailment. “But did he examine him? I don’t know,” she said.

For decades, Dr. Braunstein saw patients in a congested ground-floor office below Edgerton Apartments in Jamaica, Queens, one of dozens of buildings owned by the Trumps in the 1960s. The family sold the building in 2004, records show.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/politics/trump-vietnam-draft-exemption.html

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[Aviation Pro]

1. Add...

...falsifying a disqualifying condition to avoid military service to the growing list of crimes of the motherfucker squatting in the White House.

[PCIntern]

2. None of you seem to understand that he faced grave danger

while fucking anything that would accompany him from Studio 54. For this he deserved combat pay inasmuch as he might have contracted any number of venereal diseases, had his face sliced by a drunk/stoned out of control woman (or girl), or been robbed of his belongings by the friends of said woman who deliberately left the front door unlocked.

Of course, since he only lasted two minutes AT BEST, the window of danger was markedly decreased.

[Vinca]

3. I have no problem with anyone opting out of Vietnam. I do have a problem with someone

coming back decades later and portraying themselves as the baddest, toughest, most military-supporting leader in the history of the nation. Trump had his chance to actually fight a war for his country and he went skiing instead. To this day he won't drag his orange ass to a combat zone to thank the troops who did not fake bone spurs. He's a fraudulent Rambo and I hope those he pretends to lead realize it.

[marybourg]

5. To say nothing of disparaging

the courage of those who did serve.

[demmiblue]

7. Yeah, the attacks on McCain's capture/POW status and the utter disrespect shown to...

a Gold Star Family (the Khans) was disgusting.

[Miles Archer]

4. It gives me an added measure of peace knowing that Fred Trump no longer walks among us.

Cut from pure, evil Prescott Bush cloth.

[modrepub]

6. I Understand Why People Did This

Lot's of people took actions to avoid going to Vietnam. My father volunteered for the Air Force once he got out of college because he knew what would happen if he got a low draft number (and that's all he said about that). He was attached to the air force missile program avoiding combat service, went into reserves and was able to remain there long enough to qualify for a military pension.

I'd think a lot better of people like Trump, W Bush, Cheney and many others if they came out and plainly but forcefully stated that they didn't want to die in a senseless war that Vietnam had become. Here we are 50+ years removed from that fiasco and we still can't honestly talk about it.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

9. Probably