Donald Trump, “The Most Militaristic Person in the Room,” Avoided Military Service Himself

A dangerous hypocrite
Politics • Views: 73,691

In his nutball speeches yesterday in Las Vegas and Phoenix, Donald Trump made a big point of boasting about how “militaristic” he is, and how tough he’d be with ISIS.

So this might be a good time to remind everyone that when it came time for Trump himself to serve in the military during the Vietnam War, he went all out — with deferments, that is. The Smoking Gun investigated in 2011:

However, Selective Service records reveal that Trump, the fortunate son of a multimillionaire real estate baron, took repeated steps to avoid serving in Vietnam.

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.

Trump obtained his first two Class 2-S student deferments in June 1964 and December 1965, when he was student at Fordham University in the Bronx. He was briefly reclassified as 1-A—or “available for military service”—in late-November 1966, but that classification was switched back to 2-S three weeks later.

Another 2-S deferment is dated January 16, 1968, just months before his graduation from UPenn (to which he transferred following his sophomore year at Fordham).

Following his UPenn graduation, Trump—no longer qualified for a 2-S deferment—was again briefly classified as available for service on July 9. However, three months later, on October 15, his classification was switched to 1-Y, which was given to men deemed qualified for military service “only in time of national emergency.”

The 1-Y classification came a month after Trump underwent an “Armed Forces Physical Examination,” according to Selective Service records, which note the results of the exam as “DISQ.” While the military records do not further detail why Trump was granted the 1-Y deferment, a 1992 biography of the businessman by journalist Wayne Barrett reported that Trump received a medical deferment following the September 17, 1968 exam.

So once again we have a Republican politician who talks big and wouldn’t hesitate to send other people’s children into harm’s way at the drop of a hat, but when the chips were down for him personally he ran away like a coward and used his privilege to avoid serving in the military.

“The most militaristic person in this room,” as long as other people do the fighting.

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Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
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