On September 17, 1968, a podiatrist diagnosed Donald Trump, then a 22 year old who was eligible for military service in Vietnam, with bone spurs. The following month, he was reclassified as 1-Y – “qualified for service only in time of war or national emergency” – although curiously, he had been classified as 1-A only ten days before this medical exam took place, and a previous medical exam two years prior had not discovered the bone spurs. Trump had graduated from Wharton in May of that year, meaning that his previous college deferment no longer prevented him from getting drafted.
As a graduate of the New York Military Academy, Trump would presumably have been exactly the kind of recruit the army was looking for, but it was not to be. In a 2015 interview, Trump attributed his lack of selection to being lucky in the random draw of draftees. He did not mention his medical exemption, nor the fact that the draw did not start until December 1969.
