Draft Dodger Donald Trump has “secret plan” to destroy ISIS but doesn’t “want the enemy to know what I’m doing.” 

By Nate Thayer

June 17, 2015

While Donald Trump confidently trumpeted his “secret plan” to destroy ISIS, one of the “greatest threats to the security of this nation” yesterday, he is more than vague about the details. “If I win, I don’t want the enemy to know what I’m doing,” Trump said of the Islamic extremist group. “Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to tell at some point, but there is a method of defeating them quickly and effectively and having total victory.”

Donald Trump’s U.S. Draft records from the U.S. Selective Service

In the 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon also promised a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War. After the election his plan turned out to be to expand the war, including into Cambodia and Laos. While Nixon’s “secret plan” to defeat the Vietnamese didn’t work out so well, according to history, it did help get Nixon elected.

But Donald Trump’s quest to be Commander-in-chief of the U.S. military may be hampered by Trump having been a draft dodger during the height of the Vietnam War, documents suggest, having been inexplicably classified as medically “unqualified–rejected” within weeks of his no longer being eligible for a student deferment..

Trump and the Military Draft
Trump was a “star athlete” according to Trump, at the New York Military Academy, where he graduated at age 18 in 1964–the year that Washington instituted a compulsory military draft.
Trump played varsity football in 1962, varsity soccer in 1963, and varsity baseball from 1962 to 1964, when he was baseball captain. “When I was 17, I loved sports,” Trump told MTV in 2010. “I was always a good athlete. I played football, baseball, soccer. I wrestled. I think the thing I liked the best was baseball.”

Donald Trump (R) at the U.S. Military Institute, where he graduated high school in 1964–the year the military draft began

“I was captain of the baseball team,” Trump explained. “I was supposed to be a professional baseball player. Fortunately, I decided to go into real estate instead.”
Trump registered with the draft board in June, 1964, as required by law, and was designated “1-A” – Ready for immediate induction. (no deferment) and fully fit to serve in the military. His Selective Service registration card was signed by Trump on June 24, 1964, 10 days after he turned 18.

It noted only that Trump has birthmarks on both his heels.

Trump’s draft card

But that same year he entered Fordham University and received his first Classification of 2-S, a student deferment, as he did again in 1965.

He was briefly reclassified 1-A–fully fit for duty–in 1966, the same year he also passed a military approved medical exam, but was reclassified later that year again as 2-S and held that designation until he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, where he had transferred to from Fordham in 1966.
“I began by attending Fordham University…but after two years…I applied to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and I got in,” Trump wrote in his book Trump: The Art of the Deal. “I was also very glad to get finished. I immediately moved back home and went to work full-time with my father.”

“Let me tell you, I’m a really smart guy. I was a really good student at the best school in the country,” Trump said. The New York Times wrote in both 1973 and 1976 that Trump “graduated first in his class from the Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968”, but the New York Times magazine wrote in 1984 that “the commencement program from 1968 does not list him as graduating with honors of any kind,” even though “just about every profile ever written about Mr. Trump states that he graduated first in his class at Wharton in 1968.”

Trump has no record–anecdotal or otherwise–of having physical medical issues that would warrant him being unfit for service during his college days.

“He was on the squash team at Fordham, where he played doggedly every afternoon,” a biography Donald Trump: Master Apprentice reads. “Eventually, he won a spot on the first string team.” But when he left for the University of Pennsylvania “as a transfer student, he was ineligible to play on varsity sports teams,” according to the biography.

There is no mention of debilitating medical conditions or injuries.
Trump and his Medical Draft Exemption
Once Trump graduated from college in 1968 was when his classification by the U.S. Selective Service comes under legitimate suspicion.
Trump claims that in 1968 his military draft lottery number was so high that he managed to avoid being drafted. He has made no mention of a medical deferment. “I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number. I’ll never forget….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.” Trump graduated from Wharton in May, 1968.

Trumped Selective Service record showing he was designated 4-F–medically incapable of serving in the military

The problem is Trump appears to have made that all up.
There were no draft numbers in 1968. They were not started until December 1969–a year and 1/2 after Trump graduated from college.

It is correct that Trump drew an extremely high number on December 1, 1969–#356–for his date of birth of June 14th.

But by the time that number had been first drawn, on December 1, 1969, Trump had already arranged– 15 months prior and after he graduated from college– to be deemed medically unfit and ineligible to serve in the U.S. military and he was formally designated exempt from the draft.

After graduation, Trump no longer qualified for a 2-S deferment and was again classified as 1-A–ready for immediate induction for military service–on July 9, 1968. According to military records from the National Archives and Records Administration obtained by Smoking Gun, Donald Trump actually received a medical deferment in September, 1968, shortly after he graduated from college, exempting him from serving in the armed forces for medical reasons.
But Trump has repeatedly refused to release his medical records or the reasons for him being medically exempted from military service remain secret.

Donald Trump speaks during the 38th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. Picture taken February 10, 2011. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Trump and his Draft Classification History
In fact, by 1969, Trump had managed to receive four student deferments and then–after he was no longer eligible for student deferments because he had graduated and was working for his rich father’s real estate company–a medical deferment.
Trump obtained his first two Class 2-S student deferments in June 1964 and December 1965, when he was student at Fordham University in the Bronx. He was then given a 1-A–or “ready for immediate induction for military service”–on November 22, 1966. But three weeks later on December 13, that was changed again to the student deferment status of 2-S. And two days later, on December 15, 1966, he saw a doctor and underwent an Armed Forces Physical Examination which Trump appears to have passed as physically fit, as he was twice afterwards assigned Selective Service classifications 2-S for student deferment and then deemed fully eligible for military service, classified 1-A.
Another 2-S deferment was granted January 16, 1968, just months before his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in May, 1968. After graduation, Trump no longer qualified for a 2-S deferment and was again classified as 1-A–ready for immediate induction for military service–on July 9, 1968.

But two months later, in September, 1968, he went and saw a doctor for another “Armed Forces Physical Examination,” according to Selective Service records, resulting in Trump being deemed “DISQ”–or disqualified from military service for medical reasons.

Trump and his failed Trump University which was sued for defrauding students

The military records do not give any details of what was medically wrong with him, but a 1992 biography by journalist Wayne Barrett said Trump received a medical deferment following the September 17, 1968 exam.
A month later, on October 15, his military classification was switched for the first time to 1-Y.

1-Y, the predecessor to 4-F, was given to men deemed unqualified for military service for medical reasons. After the military on December 1971 abolished the 1-Y classification, the former “star athlete” was re–designated again and changed on February 1, 1972 to a 4-F medical deferment classification–unfit for military service for medical reasons.

Trump and his haircut; What else is he not being honest about?

Trump and his Campaign Demanding College and Other Records from President Obama

Trump is far from the only high level politician to have seemingly avoided service in Vietnam by over exuberant use of student deferments or outright abuse or manipulation of the draft eligibility system. Presidents Bush and Clinton both stand accused of it, as do Vice Presidents Biden and Cheney, presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Jon Cornyn, Republican House Speaker John A. Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and assorted goofballs like Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh, and “Sylvester “Rambo” Stallone.

But Trump stands alone as waging a high decibel public campaign demanding that President Obama release records (which were already released) while trumpeting long discredited allegations that the president was a secret foreign-born Muslim.

Trump was perhaps the leading “birther”–suggesting the Obama’s birth certificate was a fake and the president was, in fact, born in Kenya, and a grand conspiracy was protecting the commander-in-chief, who was neither American or eligible to be president. The theory had and has been repeatedly debunked by most anyone, save for a few conspiracy theorist crackpots.
After President Obama released his long-form birth certificate in 2011, Trump ignored the fact that the records further demonstrated conclusively that Trump’s accusations that Obama was a secret Kenyan were simply wrong.

Instead, Trump doubled down.

Trump claimed that Obama’s grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya. Trump’s mother, for the record, was born in Scotland, which is, also, not part of the United States. And his airplane is registered in the Bahamas, which is also a foreign country. The obvious response is: so what?
It was October, 2012–days before the presidential elections, that Trump Tweeted he was about to make a “major announcement.”
Not satisfied with the resolution of the Obama ‘Birther’ issue, on October 24, 2012 Trump offered to donate five million dollars to the charity of Obama’s choice in return for President Obama releasing his “college records and applications, and passport application and records” before October 31, 2012.
“I have a deal for the president,” Trump said. “If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications, and passport application and records, I will give to a charity of his choice, a check immediately for $5 million.”
He demanded Obama release his Occidental College school records and said the president was unqualified to be admitted to Columbia and later Harvard. “How do you get into Harvard if you are not a good student?” Trump said. “I don’t know why he doesn’t release his records.”

The British newspaper, “The Guardian”, contacted Trump shortly afterwards and asked for Trump’s college and passport records. Michael Cohen, executive vice president at the Trump Organization and special counsel to Trump, refused, accusing the news outfit of “trying to be funny” and deemed the query “stupid”, citing the fact that, at the time, Trump “is not running for president.”
“I tell you what, he’ll provide them to you when you provide yours to him,” he said. “And I tell you what, why don’t you do this, since you want to be so clever. Why don’t you turn around and say if Mr Trump releases all of his records to you, you will donate $5 million to the charity of his choice? And by the way, while we’re at it, I’d like to have all your authorizations under HIPPA, for all your medical records as well,” Cohen said.
“But what’s your point? Mr Trump’s not the president of the United States and he’s not running for the presidency,” Cohen concluded.

“Now I offered $5 million to see the records. And I tell you what, he would have done a great service, because there are millions, there are people in this country, I walk down the street, saying please don’t give up on the whole birth certificate,” said Trump in late 2012. “A lot of people are questioning the birth certificate. They are questioning its authenticity. … I offered $5 million to see some basic records,” said Trump.
He then upped the offer to $50 million. “Pick your charity, $50 million. Let me see your records,” he told the National Press club later that year. “And I never heard from him.”

A total of 1,857,304 men were drafted between August 1964 and February 1973.  Donald Trump was not one of them, but he won’t say why.

During all three years of the draft lottery, Trump held a 1-Y classification based on him being medically ineligible to serve in the military during the height of the Vietnam War–a war he is on the record of supporting. He obtained his medical deferment immediately after having been designated medically fit for military service and immediately after he became no longer eligible for a student deferment after graduating college. The same colleges where he says, and others confirm, he was sufficiently fit to be an active sportsman.

In 1972, Trump turned 26 and was given a 4-F classification–medically unfit for military service. His lottery number for 1972 was 95 – a number that put him in the top 25% of men who were to be drafted. Had he not been 4-F, he would have most likely would have been called to serve his country.

And Donald Trump refuses to release his own medical records during his college years, which considerable evidence suggest may not have legitimately resulted in him being exempt for medical reasons from serving his country in the U.S. military.

Now that he is asking the American people to support him to be commander-in-chief of the entire U.S. military, it seems reasonable that the American people should be privy to what exactly his medical conditions that were serious enough to disqualify him for serving his country in the U.S. military, exactly were. And whether they might also affect his ability to perform his duties as President of the United States.

Not that there does not appear likely to be a long list of other reasons. On this one, it seems that the man who does not appear to have a filter between his brain and his mouth, is busted.