Despite Donald Trump’s claim this week that he avoided serving in the Vietnam War solely due to a high draft number, Selective Service records show that the purported presidential aspirant actually received a series of student deferments while in college and then topped those off with a medical deferment after graduation that helped spare him from fighting for his country, The Smoking Gun has learned.
…By the time his number (356) was drawn during the December 1, 1969 draft lottery, Trump had already received four student deferments and a medical deferment, according to military records on file with the National Archives and Records Administration. An extract of Trump’s Selective Classification record, seen here, was provided in response to a TSG records request.
In fact, the December 1969 draft lottery occurred about 18 months after Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied business at the Wharton School. So, while claiming that he would “never forget” being at Wharton watching the draft numbers being drawn, the 64-year-old Trump seems to have misremembered, as candidates are fond of saying.
Sorry Curt, this is nothing to write home about. Most male citizens above the age of 18 got at least one deferment while they attended college. Certainly everyone of the appropriate age currently in DC did. Some of them got multiple deferments. There is nothing unusual or reprehensible about either educational or medical deferments.
I wonder how many other GOP candidates got deferment? Most republicans seem to generally have a great deal of respect for military service, I doubt this guy can cut mustard leadership wise. DT should stick to TV; where nobody has served and everybody is a fruit cake.
This is the least concerning issue of his that I take exception to. There are so many, other, worthwhile issues to object to. However, one can clearly see the indifference, to outright hostility, that non-serving President’s typically have towards the military simply by observing the actions of Clinton and Obama. Is it some sort of guilt-driven feeling, towards a department of the federal government specifically mentioned within the Constitution, that congress is required, by the supreme law of the land, to fund, when their own programs of spending require them to stretch, break, and outright mangle, certain clauses and phrases, simply to get funding?