By It sure appears that he was:
When asked how he avoided service in Vietnam, Trump replied:
Well, I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number… I was sitting in college, watching. 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 [they] never got up to.
The Smoking Gun poked yet another hole in Trump’s story, reporting that Trump’s number (356) was called up in the Vietnam lottery on Dec. 1, 1969, a full 18 months after Trump graduated from Wharton.
As Brian Bolduc of National Review Online noted yesterday, it was documented by Gwenda Blair in her book “Donald Trump: Master Apprentice” that Trump received a medical deferment “despite his athletic prowess.” [The Ticket]
I am not surprised by this at all but it just continues to seem ridiculous to me how all these well off people back during the Vietnam War era were able to avoid the draft.
10:56 pm on April 29th, 2011 1
He started throwing rocks first. If true, what a dumbass! Like no one is going to check? He's got a target on his back. I bet there are a few more skeletons in his closet. But, as far as I'm concerned (and if true), a draft dodger from that era is an automatic no go for my vote (not that I think there will be anyone worth voting for in the next election).
11:04 pm on April 29th, 2011 2
So let me try to understand this a little. He avoids draft by fraudulent methods, but in the meantime, 310,000 South Korean soldiers were sent to fight and die in Vietnam in his place so that Yanks like him can live in comfort. Now he's coming back after 40 years to throw rocks at the very same people, and demanding protection money. Wow, talk about a bald face…LOL…
What a classic American.
11:36 pm on April 29th, 2011 3
I haven't heard of him throwing rocks at vets… I meant throwing rocks at Obama.
Anyhoo, like I said, it's stupid to stir up controversy in US politics unless you yourself are clean. Regardless, Obama, who refuses to govern (or is incapable of doing so) will be the democratic nominee and it's likely a given the republicans will stand with their usual mix of religious fanatics who want to set science back to the dark ages. Another election cycle with no one to vote for.
11:36 pm on April 29th, 2011 4
No need to check if he's lying anyway. It must be assumed if we can't see the original draft card.
I also want to see the original long-form certificate for Donald Trump's Republican registration.
11:58 pm on April 29th, 2011 5
so will Americans elect this fascist? I think that's highly possible in light of the fact that America is in a very difficult position with its economy / reputation in tatters, and anger seething just under the surface. The American media also loves him. I say it would not be surprising if Americans vote him in. Then we will have a world trade war topped off by a real world war. LOL…
7:52 am on April 30th, 2011 6
Draft dodging during Vietnam? He's definitely going to get elected if he's running against a veteran, regardless of Political ideology.
Clinton > Bush I
W. Bush > McCain (Republican Primary)
W. Bush > Kerry
Obama (Not a veteran but not a draft dodger) > McCain
1:23 pm on April 30th, 2011 7
Obama dodged the draft and avoided Vietnam.
1:52 pm on April 30th, 2011 8
Wait, what? Wasn't he born in 1961? 1961 + 18 = 1979 – Did he fail to enlist with Laurence Fishburne to make Appocalypse Now? Am I missing something here?
4:09 pm on April 30th, 2011 9
Yes, it seems obvious enough those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. He's clearly not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
4:11 pm on April 30th, 2011 10
In all fairness, Clinton was studying in the UK and so accomplished something that you could argue contributed to making him a better President. W. Bush, on the other hand…
4:13 pm on April 30th, 2011 11
Even though the US recruits children (16 is the minimum age last time I checked), Obama had barely hit puberty when the Vietnam war ended.
4:21 pm on April 30th, 2011 12
Tom, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the hypocrisy issue, especially that he calls South Korea a freeloading nation when at any given time there were 50K South Korean soldiers getting shot at while he sat off in his luxury digs.
4:59 pm on April 30th, 2011 13
Off topic but I ran across something strange, interesting and somewhat disturbing. I don't know what to make of it.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Te…
5:04 pm on April 30th, 2011 14
I thought the draft ended in 1973 ? I volunteered in 1974.
5:19 pm on April 30th, 2011 15
A lot more going on. At least W did _something_ vs. Bill Clinton writing, "I loathe the military" in a letter to an ROTC colonel. I hate to go down this rabbit hole but saying Clinton accomplished something is a matter of perspective:
October 15, 1969 – Clinton organized and led anti-war demonstrations in London.
– [Wash Times Sep 18 92]
Comment – According to McSorley, Clinton's demonstrations "had the support of British peace organizations" such as the British Peace Council, an arm of the KGB-backed World Peace Council.
November 16, 1969 – Clinton organized and led anti-war demonstrations in London.
December 31, 1969 – January 6, 1970: Clinton travels to Moscow. He later said "relations between our two countries were pretty good then." He then described his visit as "a very friendly time, a good atmosphere."
Despite Clinton's claim that January 1970 was "a time of détente," relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were anything but warm. In other words the Soviets only invited you to Russia if it was a good thing for THEM. Oh BTW, the Soviets were supplying the North Vietnamese with advisers and anti-aircraft weapons.
September 7, 1992: Col. Eugene Holmes, USA Ret., signs a notarized statement in which he asserts that "there is the imminent danger to our country of a draft dodger becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States." He later writes that "I believe that he (Clinton) purposefully deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft reclassification."
So, at least to my knowledge, even if Trump was simply a draft dodger, Clinton trumps him in traitorous activities.
/turned down a Whitehouse communications slot during Clintons term, as did many others.
7:33 pm on April 30th, 2011 16
Since you're going down that road….W. Bush expressed his contempt for the military by going AWOL.
7:40 pm on April 30th, 2011 17
You have to at least be in the military to go AWOL. He must have stuck around for a little while. You don't earn pilots wings overnight.
And he certainly didn't protest against his country on foreign soil; that country supporting our enemy. So on that note, as far as lesser of two evils, I'd have to give that round to W.
8:30 pm on April 30th, 2011 18
Dude, I wouldn't call that serving. His dad's connections got him in the reserves, as a pilot to boot…And he couldn't stick around? Sorry, but remind me what's supposed to happen to deserters in a time of war?
8:57 pm on April 30th, 2011 19
I'm not defending W but are you incapable of seeing the degrees here? While Clinton and W are certainly pieces of work, it's quite obvious that W never gave comfort to or aided the enemy, even if he is an asshole. W may only be a few notches shy of Clinton on the ass scale but those are big notches. Get it?
So on said scale, I guess you'd have to go something like this:
joined voluntarily or drafted, reported and served honorably – majority of Americans
drafted of joined, (possibly AWOL or worse) – W
legitimate medical deferment (4F) – Trump?
riding the student waiver – Trump?
illegitimate medical deferment -Trump?
failure to report
running to Canada
running overseas
running overseas and committing traitorous acts in time of war – Clinton
But lets move back to things at hand.
9:20 pm on April 30th, 2011 20
Who decided the arbitrary ages of adulthood? It wasn't that many years ago that the ripe old age of 16 was about middle age.
10:18 pm on April 30th, 2011 21
Kangaj, Teadrinker, Metro12,
Now you know the reason for the fake birth certificate.
It wasn’t religion or location or citizenship, it was date of birth.
Couple that with the suspect Selective Service registration, and we have a clear case of draft dodging…
…cleverly deflected in the public eye with rumors of Kenya and Islam.
I wonder who died in his place in some God-forsaken jungle.
Obama Lied and Someone Died.
1:04 am on May 1st, 2011 22
"it's quite obvious that W never gave comfort to or aided the enemy"
I don't think being opposed to war for a philosophical reasons is in the same league as having wasted the resources of your military.
1:08 am on May 1st, 2011 23
Tell that to the US military, who admits it was a mistake sending roughly 60 17 year-olds to fight in Iraq in 2003/2004, but has since refused to divulge any relevant statistics on the matter.
1:11 am on May 1st, 2011 24
Conscription essentially ended in 1973 in the US. Obama would have been 11-12 years-old.
1:48 am on May 1st, 2011 25
Teadrinker,
“Obama would have been 11-12 years-old.”
Sure… if his birth certificate was real.
This is why it took so long to release the certificate.
The Obama team had to find a trusted mole and then get them working in the Hawaii Department of Health in a position where they had access to records. This was not something that could have been done overnight just because there was an outcry from Americans to release his birth certificate.
At some point, the mole was able to remove the original birth certificate from the archive and transfer it to a trusted laboratory for duplication or modification.
The short form was released in hopes of buying time or even making the suspicions and accusations go away… but, of course, that plan failed and the public continued to demand the truth.
While the new birth certificate was being prepared, there were a couple of interesting developments.
As the demand for the birth certificate did not subside, the Obama camp continued to fuel misdirecting rumors of unknown fathers, Islamic religious leanings as an infant, and a secret Kenya birth.
The governor of Hawaii, a well-meaning Obama ally unaware of the conspiracy and ongoing operation to replace the original birth certificate, promised to release the long form certificate only to find it missing.
This put pressure on the mole and the laboratory workers who had to rush the modification.
Mistakes were made.
While the mole was able to return the document and insert it into a later year, the record number was out of order and inconsistent with other births at that time. Further, knowing an actual photographic uncompressed high-resolution scan would instantly be detectable by an army of armchair investigators, both amateur and professional, as well as foreign security services that might attempt to expose the truth, the public “release” was done in one of the most ambiguous and least representative formats possible.
As was planned, this is keeping focus on the “birthers” who continue to question the birthplace rather than the birth date.
So, what we have is a draft-dodging president who has continued 2 wars and started a third. It is no wonder he has to go to extreme measures to hide this from the public.
3:05 am on May 1st, 2011 26
You accidentally missed my previous post. I think they are both scumbags but one is worse than the other.
November 16, 1969 – Clinton organized and led anti-war demonstrations in London.
December 31, 1969 – January 6, 1970: Clinton travels to Moscow. He later said "relations between our two countries were pretty good then." He then described his visit as "a very friendly time, a good atmosphere."
Despite Clinton's claim that January 1970 was "a time of détente," relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were anything but warm. In other words the Soviets only invited you to Russia if it was a good thing for THEM. Oh BTW, the Soviets were supplying the North Vietnamese with advisers and anti-aircraft weapons.
8:34 am on May 1st, 2011 27
Ah… ok. I knew I was missing something there in why chickenhead claimed draft dodging. I didn’t expect chickenhead to get an important “fact” that off base without something to back it up.
9:44 am on May 1st, 2011 28
Wow! The ongoing absurdity and long “reach” of “neo-cons” to somehow tie every liberal/progressive to communist ties. You “righties” really do form a “lemming march” behind your conservative talking heads i.e. Clinton was a treasonous, communist who worked for the Soviets? Now, all you have to do is get a chalkboard, dim the lights, play ominous music, and videotape your explanation of how each Liberal politician has ties to communism. “Candidate A” has a brother-in-law who once dated a girl, whose uncle got an autograph from an East German actress, who winked at Yuri Andropov during a Soviet parade in Moscow. Therefore, Candidate A is at least a socialist, if not a full-fledged communist. Don’t forget to repeat it over and over because the more it is said, the more it becomes true.
9:56 am on May 1st, 2011 29
It is unfortunate that someone as educated as Teadrinker has officially disclosed himself as being as unhinged as the birthers he rightfully criticizes.
First of all the youngest someone can enlist in the US Army is age 17 and only with parental consent. Very rarely do you see anyone age 17 in the military. The minimum age without consent is 18 years old.
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/enlage.htm
Meanwhile Teadrinker’s Canadian military is busy recruiting not only 17 year olds but even 16 year olds:
Next up is the Bush going AWOL belief. Bush already produced documents that put this to rest:
That leaves the Dan Rather document. Teadrinker some how despite all the evidence must then believe that this widely discredited document is some how true:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6055248/ns/politics/
If despite all this evidence Teadrinker still think Bush was AWOL, that pretty much puts him right there with the birthers.
9:57 am on May 1st, 2011 30
It all makes a lot of sense in a circularly logical kind of way.
In keeping with my theory that Sensationalism Sells, I noticed that I got several very serious replies.
Make honest posts with reasonable ideas… nobody notices… the line is dead. Turn on the trolling motor and here come the little fishies all ready to bite.
That was kinda fun… but I don’t have the heart to let it continue.
At least Obama now has some experience in keeping secrets… as that will maintain national pride… as he won’t spill the beans about those “moon landings”.
10:08 am on May 1st, 2011 31
It was pretty funny to watch the reactions Chickenhead was getting from posting pure nonsense.
10:42 am on May 1st, 2011 32
ChickenHead wrote:
I realize you’re this is not serious and you’re only trying to make a bigger point about sensationalism, but if you were serious, or if someone were to foolishly take this seriously, there is a glaring flaw here.
That is, Neil Abercrombie (i.e., the governor of Hawaii), actually knew Obama’s parents when they were all students at the same university, and he clearly recalls her being pregnant, her giving birth, and his own interactions with their infant (young BHO).
For a B. Hussein Obama faking his birth date to be actually old enough to be a draft dodger, he’d have to have been born well before Neil Abercrombie would have known Ms Dunham or Mr Obama Sr.
That would mean either the theory is wrong (which it obviously is) or that Neil Abercrombie were in on it.
BTW, I’ve talked with the governor (it’s a small island) about his early years in Hawaii as a grad student — something we have in common, such that I joked with him that in fifty years I’ll run for governor, too — and I can understand why the birther nonsense made him so mad.
This will probably be my one comment for the day, but I thought someday someone might come here and latch onto CH’s tongue-in-cheek theory…
11:32 am on May 1st, 2011 33
Kushibo,
That’s the problem with you Truth In Birthing Deniers.
Obviously, the pregnancy that Neil Abercrombie saw was NOT Barack Obama. While the numbers have to be calculated in further detail, current evidence points to this:
http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2010/1/2/129069693058259414.jpg
2:42 pm on May 1st, 2011 34
ChickenHead’s birtherism is witty irony, like his climate-change denialism.
5:56 pm on May 1st, 2011 35
#32 Bullshat! Paul is dead!
11:47 pm on May 1st, 2011 36
Donald OWES a huge apology to vets of S Korean army who served in vietnam conflict. How dare he accuse SK of freeloading when HE himself is a draft dodger?
8:21 am on May 3rd, 2011 37
The “Don” could never survive a presidency. He’s too thin-skinned. Did anyone see the clip of his “reaction” to SNL’s Seth Meyers jokes about him?