The Smoking Gun: Deferments Helped Trump Dodge Vietnam

[democracy1st]

During a TV interview Tuesday morning, Trump--who spent his high school years enrolled at the New York Military Academy--said, “I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number. I’ll never forget, that was an amazing period of time in my life.”

He went on to recall, “I was going to the Wharton School of Finance, and I was watching as they did the draft numbers and I got a very, very high number and those numbers never got up to.” The word “deferment” was not mentioned by Trump during his chat with the morning show hosts on WNYW, the Fox affiliate in New York City.

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

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/deferments-helped-trump-dodge-vietnam

[EmmettKelly]

1. Good for him, everyone I knew back then took advantage of

any deferment or delay that we could to stay out of JFK/LBJ's little jungle adventure. As it turned out only 6% of eligible young men were ever drafted, that was one of the complaints, the inequity.

[DCBob]

3. Then why did he lie about it when asked about it??

Trump is lying, manipulative, pathetic, self-centered, arrogant asshole that deserves no respect from anyone in this country.

[patrice]

8. That's the point. If soooooooooo many Americans understand what he did, why hide it? Answer below:

Because he wants to look good/better to those who did go.

[Kingofalldems]

16. Good question. Looks like it was dodged though

with a rant about LBJ.

[demtenjeep]

5. nice how you only lay it at JFK/LBJ's feet what about Nixon?

something smells here

[EmmettKelly]

6. Nixon? He wasn't around at the beginning and he pushed to eliminate the draft.

What about him? You want to blame our initial involvement on him? He inherited that mess from LBJ. Remember how that works?

[patrice]

7. Didn't he also extend it by at least a decade with his own "October Suprise" against LBJ?

There are phone recordings of LBJ and Everett Dirkson discussing this in the weeks before the vote.

[EmmettKelly]

9. Nixon didn't run against LBJ

Johnson pulled the plug after the New Hampshire primaries where he got hammered by his own party.

"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

LBJ: March 31, 1968

That had nothing to do with Nixon.

http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp

[patrice]

11. Okay, I got the timeline wrong. Sorry. That phone call IS in the record anyway.

Johnson was asking Dirkson to do something about Nixon making promises he couldn't deliver to the Vietnamese.

[chelsea0011]

10. Nixon during the war...a short synopsis

1969 U.S. troop deployment reaches highest point of the war in April: 543,000. President Nixon begins U.S. troop withdrawal on May 14.
1970 U.S. and South Vietnamese forces cross Cambodian border to get at enemy bases (April 30).
1971 U.S. bombers strike massively in North Vietnam for alleged violations of 1968 bombing halt agreement (Dec. 26 to 30). U.S. troops number 140,000 at year's end.
1972 North Vietnamese launch bombing offensive across demilitarized zone (March 30). U.S. resumes bombing of Hanoi (April 15); U.S. announces mining of North Vietnam ports. Last U.S. combat troops leave (Aug. 11).
1973 Cease-fire accord signed (Jan. 27); last non-combat U.S. troops withdraw from Vietnam (March 29); last U.S. prisoners of war released (April 1). Some U.S. civilians remain.


Read more: Vietnam War - The War In Vietnam - Vietnamese, South, North, Military, Troops, and Bombing http://law.jrank.org/pages/11125/Vietnam-War-War-in-Vietnam.html#ixzz1L1TwDXB0

[Octafish]

12. Try Dulles and Nixon's jungle adventure.

For their colonialist chums on Wall Street.

[EmmettKelly]

14. You may have different information than I'm privy to

My perspective is probably blurred by remembering that night in August of '64 when my Old Man called my buddies and I in from working on the car in the garage to watch LBJ look into the camera and on live TV, with a straight face, and lie his ass off to us about the Gulf Of Tonkin.

4 years later he went back on the TV and F'ing quit in the middle of what he had started. That night we cheered.

[Kingofalldems]

15. So you became a republican?

[EmmettKelly]

20. Maybe you had to be there.

[Octafish]

23. Here you go.

Regarding war:

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

Know your BFEE: At every turn, JFK was opposed by War Party

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn’t win WWII, so they backed Bushes.

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

[Kingofalldems]

18. Seriously, what does that have to do with Trump's lying?

Seriously.

[MineralMan]

2. Lots of folks had educational deferments.

Some graduated and got picked in the first lottery. Others drew high numbers. The whole thing sucked.

I dropped out of college in 1965. By the end of the year, I enlisted in the USAF because I got my notice to appear for a physical. Others played out their deferments and didn't get drafted.

The deferment system, while inequitable for many, was the system in place. It is funny that Trump doesn't mention the deferments, though.

And then there's Cheney, who had "other priorities." I think most folks had the same other priorities. They just didn't have the means to avoid getting drafted.

[Hangingon]

13. Thanks MineralMan.

I get the impression that many of the commentors know very little about the system in place during that time. I had several deferments - there was a SSS card in the IBM registration card deck at each semesters registration - when I paid my tuition the card went to SSS. That meant a deferment. I was a 1964 grad. They got me then.

Almost every one I knew gamed the system. It was not always fair, but we couldn't change it. I envied the National Guard guys but didn't begrudge them. Besides, several were later called up when they left drilling units. We could also talk about the guys who married. Pre '65 married men were not called.

I totally agree with your last comment.

[MineralMan]

17. Thanks. You're right. A lot of people here didn't

participate in that whole debacle.

In 1965, when I dropped out of school, I knew I'd be losing my student deferment. That was still early days, but it was clear that I was facing the draft. What I did was go to the USAF recruiter, take their evaluation test, then asked the recruiter if I could enlist immediately if I got called for the draft. Since I scored 100% on that aptitude test, he said, "Sure." The day I got my notice to report for a physical, I dropped into the recruiter's office. The same day I was supposed to have the physical, I was at Lackland AFB being yelled at by a drill sergeant.

I took four years off from my life, then resumed it when I got out. It didn't do me any harm, I guess. Other people made other choices.

The funniest thing about the whole business was that I got called a "draft dodger" by some Army guys one time. I always thought that was funny. I dodged the draft by enlisting for four years, instead of getting drafted for two years. Funny.

[Hangingon]

21. Graduated in Spring '64

I knew the draft would be coming in 6 moths or so. Draft quotas were full for a couple of months after each graduation/semester end. I made the rounds of Air Force (waiting list), National Guard (waiting list) and Army recruiter. He offered me helicopter pilot training or military intelligence. I was going with MI and then he said that MOS was full. So I waited for the draft.

I see the threads about draft dodgers and deferments and laugh. You had to have lifed thru it to understand. There are great stories about how people worked a fiddle to avoid the war. Had a friend who joined the National Guard early. He was called up for the Cuban missle crisis. After he graduated and married, he complete the drilling requirement. He was called up as a filler in another state's Guard activation. Off to Vietnam with a pregnant wife at home. Sometimes the fiddle didn't work.

[elocs]

19. I started college in 1970 & was in the 2nd draft lottery. #358/366.

Best lottery I ever won. Of course by the time I graduated from college the draft was over anyways.

The irony was that I went to college on the G.I. Bill because I was the dependent of a 100% disabled veteran. I kept getting enticements to enlist from the services while I was in college, but that really did not seem like a good idea.

[HopeHoops]

4. What? No anal cysts?

:shrug:

[Obamanaut]

22. IIRC, Clinton got educational deferments also. It was legal. Many others did also. nt