Donald Trump and I have one thing in common
On Saturday, President Trump launched our newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, at Norfolk, Virginia. He used the occasion to remind potential enemies about our military might, calling the ship a “100,000- ton message to the world.”
Donald Trump was born into fabulous wealth; I was born into working- class poverty. Yet we have one thing in common: When we were young men, we both faced the military draft.
People don’t talk about the draft much these days, but go back a generation or two, and it was a crucial point in the lives of all young men. At age 18, we had to register at local draft boards. After registration, working- class kids were likely to be called up and had to spend at least two years in the Army.
Rich boys, on the other hand, had a host of ways to wiggle out of their military obligation. Oneway was to stay in college and claim student deferments. When he was a young fellow, Donald Trump had at least five student deferments as he went through college. The Vietnam War was raging at the time, and many chaps of his social class developed a hunger for higher education and, of course, the draft deferments. When he finally reported for a physical, he carried with him a note from a private doctor that claimed he had bone spurs in one of his heels. He later couldn’t remember which heel ( left or right) was so afflicted.
When I took my physical, I was with about 100 other guys, all of us naked and shivering. None of us had even heard of notes from private doctors. Donald Trump never served a day in the military. As for me, I joined the Marine Corps and served for three years ( 1955- 1958).
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