Trump often calls us to “FIGHT!” But what is his record of fighting? Is he a brave veteran? Or did he avoid the draft?
Even as his contemporaries were being drafted into the Vietnam War, Trump never served in the military, instead receiving four deferments for attending the University of Pennsylvania, and then in the fall of 1968, Trump received a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military.
Heel spurs are protrusions caused by calcium buildup on the heel bone, which reportedly made him unfit for service.
The diagnosis came two years after Trump had been declared available for service and passed a physical exam.
Trump sat out the war and instead went on to join his father in business.
For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.
In 2018, the New York Times reported a possible explanation about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Donald Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.