2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDonald Trump’s Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet
New York Times
Back in 1968, at the age of 22, Donald J. Trump seemed the picture of health.
He stood 6 feet 2 inches with an athletic build; had played football, tennis and squash; and was taking up golf. His medical history was unblemished, aside from a routine appendectomy when he was 10.
But after he graduated from college in the spring of 1968, making him eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, he received a diagnosis that would change his path: bone spurs in his heels.
The diagnosis resulted in a coveted 1-Y medical deferment that fall, exempting him from military service as the United States was undertaking huge troop deployments to Southeast Asia, inducting about 300,000 men into the military that year.
The deferment was one of five Mr. Trump received during Vietnam. The others were for education.
His experience during the era is drawing new scrutiny after the Muslim American parents of a soldier who was killed in Iraq publicly questioned whether Mr. Trump had ever sacrificed for his country. In an emotional speech at the Democratic National Convention last week, the soldiers father, Khizr Khan, directly addressed Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, saying, You have sacrificed nothing and no one.
Mr. Trumps public statements about his draft experience sometimes conflict with his Selective Service records, and he is often hazy in recalling details.
In an interview with The New York Times last month, Mr. Trump said the bone spurs had been temporary a minor malady that had not had a meaningful impact on him. He said he had visited a doctor who provided him a letter for draft officials, who granted him the medical exemption. He could not remember the doctors name.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/politics/donald-trump-draft-record.html?emc=edit_th_20160802&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=45299538&_r=0
TexasProgresive
(12,159 posts)anoNY42
(670 posts)so long as you didn't also support the war at the same time.
I respect those who burned their draft cards; the draft is slavery...
RapSoDee
(421 posts)Five deferments, that's a lot for famous Chickenhawks.
Golly gee.
tanyev
(42,629 posts)the letter proclaiming Trump would be the healthiest president in American history.