Were there notable public figures who received bone spur exemptions during the Vietnam draft?
Executive summary
Donald J. Trump is the most widely cited high-profile figure tied to a Vietnam-era “bone spur” medical deferment, a diagnosis that figures and reporting say led to his exclusion from service in 1968 [1] [2]. Reporting and testimony disagree about whether the diagnosis reflected genuine pathology or an arranged exemption, and historians place such medical deferments in a broader pattern of draft avoidance among better-off Americans during the Vietnam era [1] [3] [2].
1. Donald Trump: the canonical “bone spurs” case and competing narratives
Multiple major outlets report that Donald J. Trump received a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels in the fall of 1968 that produced a medical deferment from the Vietnam draft, a story supported by family accounts about a Queens podiatrist who signed the paperwork [1] [2]. That narrative is contested: Trump at times has attributed his low draft lottery number and student deferments to avoiding service, he did not produce contemporaneous medical records publicly, and his former lawyer Michael Cohen later testified alleging the injury was fabricated—evidence that leaves room for alternative readings of the record [1] [4] [3].
2. How journalists and historians frame the deferment: individual fact and structural pattern
News outlets and historians emphasize that Trump’s bone‑spur deferment sits within a larger pattern in which college deferments, medical diagnoses and access to sympathetic physicians disproportionately benefited men from wealthier families during Vietnam, a point stressed by scholars and critics including Sen. John McCain [2] [5]. Contemporary pieces explain that medical disqualifications—whether for heel spurs, asthma or psychiatric claims—were among several legal avenues that reduced the number of men actually drafted, and that these paths were sometimes pursued strategically [6] [7].
3. Evidence and limits: what the public record does and does not prove
The New York Times reported the podiatrist’s family memory that he aided a young Trump with a diagnosis that produced an exemption, while other sources point out the absence of surgical records or the president’s inconsistent public explanations—facts that complicate a definitive conclusion about whether the condition was genuine or contrived [1] [4]. Under oath testimony from Trump’s lawyer and subsequent media scrutiny supply circumstantial corroboration for doubts, but the publicly available sources do not include contemporaneous medical files that would settle the question outright [3] [1].
4. Broader examples and the absence of many named “bone spur” celebrities in sources
Reporting collected here repeatedly cites Trump as the emblematic public figure associated with a bone‑spur deferment; sources do not furnish other clear, contemporaneously documented high‑profile cases of bone spurs producing exemptions at the same level of public attention [2] [1]. That absence in the sampled reporting does not mean other individuals never used similar medical claims—only that within these sources Trump is the notable, named example and that historians treat medical exemptions collectively as a common route rather than as a parade of celebrity cases [2] [6].
5. Motives, agendas and why the story persists politically
Coverage of bone‑spur deferments has taken on outsized political valence because the issue speaks to fairness in conscription, social inequality and character judgments about leaders; critics use the deferment story to argue privilege, supporters emphasize legal deferments and lottery outcomes, and partisan actors amplify whichever aspect serves their aims—making it as much a political cudgel as a narrow medical question [5] [2]. Some reporting and commentators have incentives to underscore wrongdoing or to normalize deferments depending on editorial stance or political alignment, so readers should weigh both the factual record and the framing each source applies [1] [3].
6. Bottom line
Available mainstream reporting identifies Donald J. Trump as the primary high‑profile public figure linked to a Vietnam‑era bone‑spur medical deferment, with documentary gaps and contested testimony leaving reasonable dispute about whether the condition was authentic or arranged [1] [3] [4]. Broader historical studies and contemporary journalists also show that medical deferments were a common, sometimes strategically used, route out of service—especially among the socioeconomically advantaged—though other famous individuals tied to “bone spur” exemptions do not appear in the sampled reporting as clearly documented peers to Trump [6] [2] [7].