# The Donald and the Draft **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 2, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587 "2016-08-02T21:47:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/1 "2016-08-02T21:47:44Z")
This just in. Film at eleven. > [@](#): > > Donald Trump is pretty sure he got out of being drafted for the Vietnam War because of heel spurs, but he can’t seem to remember which heel it was that gave him problems, when the injury finally cleared up, or how serious the heel spurs actually were. > > While Trump’s explanations for why he deferred the draft have varied — sometimes it’s a lucky lottery number, sometimes it’s a health problem despite his “astonishingly excellent” health — the Republican nominee assured The New York Times that it was, indeed, due to heel spurs. “I had a doctor that gave me a letter — a very strong letter on the heels,” Trump said, though he never ended up providing that letter to the Times and could not remember the name of the doctor who had written it. > > _[The Week](http://theweek.com/speedreads/640446/donald-trumps-confusing-explanation-how-avoided-vietnam-draft)_ ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/2 "2016-08-02T22:06:09Z")
Could you really get out of the draft with just a note from your own doctor? That seems like it would make draft-dodging trivial, surely there were enough anti-war doctors that you could just find one to give you a note, rather than have to go hide out in Canada or cut off a toe or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/3 "2016-08-02T23:22:30Z")
Well, I had a note from my doctor saying I had asthma (and some other stuff that they weren’t interested in). When I went to the SSS physical I gave the note to a doctor, who asked me for more details (how bad was it, when was my last attack, and so on). He took my word for those details and I ended up 1-Y (one step above 4-F) until that designation was discontinued and I was switched to 4-F. My physical was in 1967. So he presumably had to go to a physical with that note, but the doctor may have just taken his word for how bad it was. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/4 "2016-08-02T23:22:44Z")
“Hey Paul, you’re on the draft board, right? Good. Listen, I got this friend named Trump, his son Donnie’s going to appear before you next Wednesday. He has a doctor’s note, something with his leg. Give him a deferral, will you? Smart kid like that shouldn’t go to Vietnam. Can you do that? Great. I owe you one.” ---
**Author:** ![Junior\_Spaceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Junior\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Junior_Spaceman)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/5 "2016-08-02T23:37:58Z")
“I’m the real war hero! They’re just considered war heroes because they went to war! I like people who _weren’t_ drafted!” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/6 "2016-08-02T23:43:13Z")
Yeah, so far as memory goes, his story is plausible. He’s seventy? So, he turned 18 and a half late '64? The shitpot hadn’t come to a full boil by that time, they didn’t need so many yet. Kinda what the 1-Y designation was about: set aside for now, call when they really have to. I walk like a duck, marching in formation, I step on the toes of the guys to my right and left. So, 1-Y. So, yeah, I can buy it. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/7 "2016-08-02T23:51:27Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > “Hey Paul, you’re on the draft board, right? Good. Listen, I got this friend named Trump, his son Donnie’s going to appear before you next Wednesday. He has a doctor’s note, something with his leg. Give him a deferral, will you? Smart kid like that shouldn’t go to Vietnam. Can you do that? Great. I owe you one.” And that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. That’s also how connect young men joined [champagne units](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_unit). ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2016, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/8 "2016-08-02T23:56:32Z")
Wow! Didn’t know or had forgotten about the other guys in GeeDubs Air Guard unit. ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/9 "2016-08-03T00:41:33Z")
He sure wasn’t ever drafted, but the guy just got him self a Purple Heart. He said [he always wanted one](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/veterans-slam-donald-trump-accepting-purple-heart-article-1.2736139). I don’t know. I kind of wish he had a real one too. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/10 "2016-08-03T01:38:32Z")
Sure, maybe him being drafted might have been more just. But who wants to be the guy has Donald Trump watching his back? ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/11 "2016-08-03T01:46:11Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Sure, maybe him being drafted might have been more just. But who wants to be the guy has Donald Trump watching his back? I think there may have been some friendly fire in that case. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/12 "2016-08-03T02:07:16Z")
Dispatch: Lt. Milo Minderbinder was killed in action today in Italy. An autopsy revealed wounds from a .50 caliber machine gun, a .30 caliber machine gun, a .45 caliber submachine gun, a .45 caliber pistol, a .30 caliber rifle and a bayonet. Citations for bravery under fire are pending…" ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/13 "2016-08-03T02:10:37Z")
I went to my local draft board office when I turned 18 and registered (in 1970). At some point after that I got a letter from them with a form that said that if I had a medical reason for being deferred I should get a doctor to attest to it. I went to my family doctor and had him measure my height. He put down (correctly) that I’m just under 4’11" and mailed the form to the draft board. Soon I got a letter from them saying that I had been rated 1-Y (which meant that for the moment they didn’t want me). A year or so later they changed the rating to 4-F, so I was permanently deferred. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/14 "2016-08-03T02:23:03Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > So he presumably had to go to a physical with that note, but the doctor may have just taken his word for how bad it was. While waiting to see the doctor, the note allowed him to study what the problem was, and in which heel. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/15 "2016-08-03T02:25:49Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Yeah, so far as memory goes, his story is plausible. He’s seventy? So, he turned 18 and a half late '64? The shitpot hadn’t come to a full boil by that time, they didn’t need so many yet. Kinda what the 1-Y designation was about: set aside for now, call when they really have to. > > I walk like a duck, marching in formation, I step on the toes of the guys to my right and left. So, 1-Y. > > So, yeah, I can buy it. Me too. And who the hell would expect him to remember the name of the doctor after all these years? Or be able to produce a copy of the letter? There are a million and one legitimate and hopefully effective ways to attack Trump’s suitability for the presidency. This particular issue ranks extremely low on the list. ---
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/16 "2016-08-03T02:27:45Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Yeah, so far as memory goes, his story is plausible. He’s seventy? So, he turned 18 and a half late '64? The shitpot hadn’t come to a full boil by that time, they didn’t need so many yet. Well, first he got 4 deferments for college and his [5th and final deferment](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/politics/donald-trump-draft-record.html?_r=0) in 1968 was for the bone spurs. The shitpot was pretty steaming by then. But if the draft issue didn’t really put a dent in Bill Clinton (or Dubya’s choice of Dick Cheney as VP in 2000), it almost certainly won’t with Trump, even if he is the most militaristic person that he knows. Just as in '92, the biggest issue for a significant number of Trump supporters and undecideds will be the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/17 "2016-08-03T02:37:43Z")
I assume the letter was provided by his trusted family physician, Dr. John Miller. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/18 "2016-08-03T02:56:20Z")
It’s not like Donald didn’t experience his own Viet Nam: > [@](#): > > **Draft-Dodger Trump Said Sleeping Around Was My ‘Personal Vietnam’** > > In a 1997 Howard Stern interview, the future presidential candidate likened sleeping with multiple women to service in the war he repeatedly avoided. > > Draft-dodger Donald Trump once said that the danger he faced from getting sexually transmitted diseases was his own “personal Vietnam.” > > In a 1997 interview with shock jock Howard Stern, Trump talked about how he had been “lucky” not to have contracted diseases when he was sleeping around. > > “I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there. It’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam-era,” Trump said in a video that resurfaced Tuesday on Buzzfeed, “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” > > [The Daily Beast](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/16/draft-dodger-trump-said-sleeping-around-was-my-personal-vietnam.html) ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/19 "2016-08-03T03:56:17Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > This just in. Film at eleven. I don’t particularly care that he avoided the draft. But “a very strong letter on the heels”? The hell? He has to shoehorn the word “strong” into every goddamned thing he says. A strong letter about how badly hobbled he was? He fetishizes “strength” so thoroughly that in his mind a letter telling the draft board he’s too unwell to fight is somehow “strong”. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2016, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587/20 "2016-08-03T04:24:25Z")
> [@ganthet](#): > > But if the draft issue didn’t really put a dent in Bill Clinton (or Dubya’s choice of Dick Cheney as VP in 2000), it almost certainly won’t with Trump, even if he is the most militaristic person that he knows. Just as in '92, the biggest issue for a significant number of Trump supporters and undecideds will be the economy. FTR, here’s the letter a 23 year old Bill Clinton wrote from Oxford, UK about his draft deferment to Col. Eugene Holmes, director of the Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Arkansas. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/etc/draftletter.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/etc/draftletter.html) An interview with ABC News’ Ted Koppel follows in the link. Koppel: [INDENT][INDENT]Before this broadcast is over tonight, I will have read to you the entire text of a 22 - year - old letter which was written by a 23 - year - old Bill Clinton. It is, as Governor Clinton himself described it today, the account of a conflicted and thoughtful young man. It is quite a remarkable letter, actually, eloquent and revealing. Many of you will hear it and find in it a reaffirmation of everything you like and admire about Bill Clinton. Others among you will be angered by what you hear. It is safe to assume that those who leaked the letter to us at Nightline and to our colleagues at World News Tonight did not do so in the expectation, however, that this letter would help the Clinton campaign. As the governor noted earlier in the day, presidential politics is a contact sport. Having said that, it is also clear that the Clinton campaign feels that the leaking of the letter just days before the New Hampshire primary is a low blow. [/INDENT][/INDENT] [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-donald-and-the-draft/761587.md?page=2)