Donald Trump and the draft
One of our friends, Nate Thayer, wrote a rather long piece last year about Donald Trump and his military service, or rather, the lack thereof. Nate and I don’t see eye-to-eye on politics, generally speaking, so this is presented for informational purposes. Nate got a FOIA on Trump’s draft records;
I know the selective service is ancient history to many of you (the draft ended the year before I was eligible) so I’ll explain what you’re looking at; From 1964 – 1968, Trump was exempt from the draft because he was a student (2-S). In 1968, when he was no longer a student he was classified as 1-A – fully eligible, later that year, after a medical examination in September 1968, he was classified 1-Y – qualified for military service only in time of national emergency (that classification disappeared in 1971). In 1972, Trump’s classification changed to 4F – unqualified for military service, when the 1-Y classification was dropped from selective service. Trump has been unwilling to tell us why he was determined to be unfit for military service in 1968, you know, after years spent as an athlete.
Trump is fond of saying that his draft lottery number in 1968 was too high for him to worry about being drafted. However, the lottery didn’t begin until 1969 and it’s true that his number for his birthday, June 14, 1946, was quite high – 356 out of 365 – and that number would have followed him through out the period of conscription until it ended in 1972, so after the draft lottery started it was unlikely that he would be called to serve.
Many politicians followed the same path through the 60s – Dick Cheney, for example, had student draft deferments in the early 60s pre-Vietnam War years, so did Harry Reid and Bernie Sanders. Student deferments only seem to matter when we’re talking about Republicans, though. You know, as if being drafted was the only way people entered military service during Vietnam. Many of you already know that’s not true. My uncle enlisted in the Army and was sent to Vietnam in 1967 as a helicopter crew chief – he came back unscathed, thankfully. But, my point is that not everyone needed to be told to join the military. Out of the 9 million Americans who served during the Vietnam War period (1965 – 1973), 1.7 million were draftees.
I’m not going to hold Trump’s draft avoidance against him when I pinch my nose closed and vote this November – however that turns out.
Category: Politics
“Pinch my nose closed and vote…”. That describes me to a tee come November. Probably gonna need a stiff drink and a couple showers afterward too.
Well I’m planning on taking a Xanax and two shots of rum and then pulling the leaver
Agreed. This will be the first election I will need a designated driver.
I’m stealing that.
To Canada or the airport.
I wonder how drunk, too drunk to vote is? lol
Hell, dead people vote-why not drunks? 🙂
Pull the lever kronk!
Something as simple as fallen arches may have disqualified him for service. You’d have to have access to his medical records — and if I were him, it wouldn’t be any of our business, either.
Athletes get injured too. I don’t know what sport Trump played.. but it is likely he was an aggressive player.
Many people didn’t want to be drafted or join willingly because the war was not being fought like a war. The armed forces had to fight with one arm tied behind their backs by both the president and by congress at varying times.
“The armed forces had to fight with one arm tied behind their backs by both the president and by congress at varying times.”
That sounds familiar. . .. sounds like today’s ROEs. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Nailed it!
He played baseball, football, and soccer at the New York Military Academy. Link:
http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/story/donald-trump-played-varsity-soccer-in-high-school-020316
It has been said that he could have had a competitive pro career in baseball. He was more interested in growing the family real estate business. Or so they say. (I have no personal knowledge, just passing along what I’ve heard.)
Would bone spurs in the feet disqualify one from military service back then? Seems like they did, but don’t really remember for sure.
IDC SARC could probably answer this better than I could, but the information I found indicates several particular conditions, and also states any condition that impairs the ability to run, walk, or march. If the bone spurs were severe enough, yes, I would think they would disqualify a candidate.
I’m not really sure about that particular time frame.
However, there are any number of conditions that can exclude people from military service that would not necessarily keep them from being athletic. The difference is that the military needs you to be ready from the start on their terms and isn’t inclined to give you a free pass during times that you aren’t performing at 100%.
Bone spurs, observed decreased range of motion in certain joints, mental disorders diagnosed or implied, irritable bowel syndrome, hemorrhoids, any organ which presents as abnormal in size, asymptomatic heart or lung abnormalities, abnormal lab values that imply underlying genetic abnormalities with the potential to impact military service etc etc can all disqualify a person.
While there are written guidelines for conditions that preclude military service, reenlistment, aviation, diving etc., many conditions are waiverable and granting of waivers is extremely variable, but if the person doesn’t want to pursue a waiver, it won’t happen on its own.
I was in Infantry training in the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Kentucky in the winter of 1972.
I remember out in the field that winter seeing my Platoon Sergeant wrapping Zippo hand warmers against his knees with old socks before getting in his sleeping bag.
He had bursitis in his knees so bad he needed them to be able to sleep in the cold.
Yet he was jumping out of airplanes and humping the bush with his troops.
Where there’s a will there’s a way ….and where there’s no will there’s no way.
I hear ya. I’ve had my own similar experiences seeing Marines keep going despite injuries and chronic problems.
Realistically though, that’s a much different situation than being processed as an enlistee.
RA 68001326 Vietnam 68-69 and I don’t care if Trump was 4F 2S or whatever.
Ditto, bman, I was Airborne infantry in Vietnam in 65-66 and I’d vote for a North Korean Field Marshal to be our president to keep Hillary Clinton out of that office.
I frankly don’t give a rat’s ass about Trump’s deferments.
And by the way, have any of you never-Trump diehards considered the HUGE fringe benefit that if Trump is elected, John Fraud Kerry is at long last out of national public office and off the world stage?
There are a million better reasons to not vote for Trump than his draft record.
The fact that he is Donald Trump is enough for me. 😉
But there’s one good reason to vote for him, Jmper, that trumps your million: GUNS.
Another chickenhawk like Cheney…
The shitty part of the equation is that he’s still better than Hillary is. I don’t have to like or respect that comb over headed buffoon but I most likely will vote for him if for no other reason than as a vote against Hillary…pinch my nose, and pucker my sphincter..
And Clinton, Sanders, et al.
Politicians on both sides plated that card in the 60’s.
Hell, how many vets do we have in Congress these days compared to 50 years ago?
SEA. I looked at the Oct 2015 Congressional Research Service’s eight-page report profiling Congress. The last portion, found on the last page, goes to military Veterans, well after other goodies such as Latino members, Native American members, foreign-born members and so forth. In the 98th Congress (1981-82), 64% were Veterans. In the 92nd Congress (1971-72), 73% were Veterans. Those are pretty impressive numbers. For the 103rd Congress? 18.7%.
After the war/military records, or lack thereof, of our past three Presidents…not sure if this is as big of a story as some would like it to be.
This is silly. I don’t think this is particularly relevant, particularly since the bernout was a war protester and didn’t even register as a conscientious objector, and shrillary was and is too much a selfish, self-centered snot to even consider putting in 2 years of her time as a donut dollie.
I don’t understand what relevance this has, if it has any at all, and I’m inclined to think it’s just another way to point fingers AT someone and AWAY FROM someone else.
It’s nothing but bullshit meant to start infighting over nothing.
The difference is that if a Rep has a legitimate medical deferment, or any other for that matter, it’s a huge, negative, big deal. For Dems, lack of service is a plus. Even better is to have served, while concurrently or later being a protestor.
That’s true, and it emphasizes the blatant hypocrisy of the left.
At least this is better than the presidential candidate who fought to be a conscientious objector during the war. People call a man who did the student thing and then was medically disqualified a draft dodger, but hail a certain socialist who didn’t want to fight because he didn’t want to fight. And those same people think he would be good to lead the military in an armed conflict against an enemy that he hasn’t once even named.
Word ^^^^^^
“Trump was exempt from the draft because he was a student (2-S). In 1968, when he was no longer a student he was classified as 1-A – fully eligible,”
For the really younger set, that gives this clip some context.
My draft number was 13. My student deferment had ran its course. I was 22 when they got me. Did I want to go? Absolutely not. Did I have a choice? No.
I don’t begrudge those who beat the draft. What pisses me off, is how so many in the public eye try to change history on how they were able to beat it, with family connections ect.
My Lottery Number was 072. But at the time they pulled it, I had already pulled the trigger and was sitting in my own personal piece of heaven called Camp Hochmuth/Phu Bai Combat Base.
So I told them to stick the draft card where the sun don’t shine, and they said “OK, never again shall the sun shine on Phu Bai”, and ya know, they were right.
I never had a lottery number. I joined at 17. Come to think of it, I never registered with Selective Service at all. Was I supposed to?
2/17, don’t take this the wrong way, but did you spend the entire six year Universal Military Training Obligation (UMTO) on active duty?
If not, once you finished your active time and were yet within the six years, without going into the active Reserves, you would have required to register for the draft even though you had been on active duty.
Did you do that? Huh? Huh? But I guess it all depends on when (the years) you started and ended your active duty.
If not, you’re a draft dodger/smile.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh? Does that mean you didn’t?
OK, the truth is out. Expect a knock on your door from the men in black suits any day.
Who knows, maybe they’ll double up on the charges (cause Crazy Sally told them you had been going around town bragging about being first) and give you some unsupervised probation as punishment./smile
Have a great day and say Hello to the buffalo out at Clarksville station for me.
One of the curious things about the draft in those days is that a lot of the nuance of how it actually worked seems to have been lost over the span of years.
For example, it wasn’t as if you would be sitting around watching Rocky and Bullwinkle one day, and suddenly an Army truck would pull up and haul you off to basic training. Normally, if you got a draft notice, there was a time lag between the time you got it, and when you would be inducted. If you wanted to find out how much of a lag, all you had to do was call up the draft board, and ask them for a ballpark estimate which might be around 45-60 days.
What that meant is you could use one of a range of options available including finding an AR or NG slot, or joining another service. My own impression at the time was that people went with an alternative not so much from fear of winding up as an 11B20, and having little people shooting at them, but because it was a way to leverage the service in a way that would be more useful later as a civilian. Or they might have simply thought it would be more interesting to fly helicopters, or mess about with boats in the Navy.
If you were passive about things, the outlook also wasn’t just humping a ruck. It might be, at least for some, the tedious prospect of stacking snowballs in Greenland when you weren’t working a chow line.
Given that Trump had a high lottery number, that he had a medical condition, and that he showed no apparent anti-war activity, I’m not seeing a particular problem. It probably also matters, at least from a policy standpoint, that he has said he would be supportive of the military in ways Clinton has already demonstrated she would not.
Perry……..being drafted in 1970, the reserves were not a option for me. In my area they were full with waiting lists. Perhaps I could have been more proactive in pursuing that option. I was just a dumb kid who thought being drafted would not happen to me. Again I was just a dumb kid.
I think about those days in the Army everyday. Perhaps if I had not made it thru Vietnam unscathed, I would feel differently. I would not trade that experience with those who did in fact, beat the draft.
Bingo. Those drafted during the Vietnam War period had somewhat over a 1 out of 3 chance of ending up in Vietnam – just short of 38.15%, to be precise.
Of the 2.71M who served in-country in Vietnam, only 648,500 were draftees. During that time frame, 1,700,000 were drafted.
http://www.nationalvietnamveteransfoundation.org/statistics.htm
That means that nearly 2 of 3 draftees (61.85+%) served elsewhere in the world.
Good thing we have real warriors like Hillary to choose from then. Dodging that sniper fire in Bonia was a heroic feat she did for her country.
Democrats treatment of Jim Web says has solidified their view on military service in my view.
And let’s not forget, she REALLY wanted to be a Marine, but darnit, her age (26? I think) and eyesight, kept her out. /sarc
I do not hold lack of serving against him. Millions did not serve and it doesnt look like he went out of his way to get out of it. I am kinda curious about his going from 1F to 4F without any explanation and quite suddenly. A simple “my feet sucked after years of sports so they didnt want me ” would suffice.
As long as he wasnt a protester or threw medals over the fence or something i dont think this is a real story, just a curiositu
Doesn’t look like he went from 1A to 4F that quickly. He went from 2S (student deferment) to 1A (fully qualified) on 9 July 1968. On 17 September 1968, he went for an Armed Forces physical exam – and less than a month later, on 15 October 1968, he was rated 1Y (eligible for service only during national emergency). He retained the 1Y classification until 1 February 1972, at which time he was reclassified 4F (unqualified) when the 1Y category was abolished.
Sounds to me like something turned up in his 17 Sep physical that moved him from being 1A to 1Y – something that wasn’t present on his previous 15 December 1966 physical exam. But that’s merely speculation on my part.
Thanks, Hondo for deciphering those codes for me. It was a slow progress towards 4F it seems to me. I have a lot of reasons to despise that asshat but this isn’t one of them.
well Hillary was going to be a lady marine , according to her, but was too old to enlist at 27 according to her….that must count for something or nothing ?
I am holding my nose and smokin’ a bowl and am voting for the guy with hair that looks like a toupee instead of that incompotent lying sea hag
I myself just missed the draft by a few months, but had already decided to enlist in the USAF , since every draft lottery my birth date always seemed to be with in the dead meat zone and I figured my luck wasn’t going to change, so I was being proactive by enlisting so I at least had some control over my fate
2S was a college student deferment, if you turned 18 in high school it was 2HS.
Physical disqualification could easily happen for bone spurs. My brother was disqualified because he is allergic to bee stings, and there was a nasty rumor that Vietnam had a bug or two. Trump’s progression is not that unusual to me (I went from 2S to 1A to 1H, the classification for a too-high number (336) as well. Unfortunately, I had a brainfart a bit later which cost me nine years and two knees. Ah well…it was fun while it lasted.
Not everyone feels the need to serve or thinks they have the attitude and the willingness to be a positive impact. Trump did not volunteer because of his own reasons. That is what makes voluntary service so amazing and our veterans so special. So he did not serve and instead worked on his business. Bill Clinton was an actual draft dodger, a philanderer and a likely abuser of women. Ms. Rodham was his biggest enabler.
The choice between the two should be pretty simple. One man claims to have this nation and it’s citizens in mind when. The other used a cabinet level position to become privately wealthy.
yeah, pretty much my thoughts. Not everyone feels the call but it doesn’t look to me like he went to any great lengths to get out of serving either. Non issue. I hope the Dems have something better than this.
Amazon & Wash Post mogul Jeff Bezos apparently has a hard on for Trump. Liberal nut & 6th richest man in the world is reportedly going to assign 20 hitmen, er..reporters to “investigate” the Donald. Trump’s lack of military service (divorces, bankruptcies, taxes, etc) will be gone over w/ a fine tooth comb by WAPO. Don’t bet on Hillary getting the same deal.
I had a 2S deferment from 65-69. So far as I know, I never got a 1A. Don’t remember what my draft number was, but I vaguely remember it as being fairly high. (Just looked it up for the H of it – 198, in my area, that was considered high.) None of it mattered as I was commissioned thru AFROTC in June 69 and went on active duty a few months later.
“I’m not going to hold Trump’s draft avoidance against him when I pinch my nose closed and vote this November – however that turns out.”
Well, you should. And such behavior should be held against EVERYONE in public office, elected OR appointed.
Trump is a shit-weasel and his guts should fed to hyenas while he’s still alive.
And I want Clinton tied down right beside him for the same treatment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/us/politics/donald-trump-likens-his-schooling-to-military-service-in-book.html?_r=0
Yeah, fuck him and his “good brain”.
I always want to ask a draft dodger Who died in your place?
Who died, because you were a pussy?