What specific medical conditions did Donald Trump or his doctors cite to obtain draft deferments in the 1960s and 1970s?
Executive summary
Donald J. Trump received four student deferments and a medical deferment during the Vietnam draft era; the specific medical condition cited in reporting and by his own accounts was bone spurs in his heels (often summarized as “bad feet”) that produced a 1-Y medical classification and later a 4‑F classification (not qualified for service) [1] [2] [3]. The precise medical records and full details are murky because many draft-era medical files were not preserved, and reporting relies on Selective Service records, contemporaneous press accounts, family statements and retrospective interviews [3] [4].
1. The diagnosis most commonly cited: bone spurs in the heels
News reports and biographical summaries consistently say Trump’s medical deferment was for bone spurs in his heels — described in shorthand as “bad feet” — a condition his family and some of his public statements have used to explain the 1968 deferment [2] [1] [5]. The New York Times detailed a podiatrist tenant of a Trump-owned building providing a diagnosis of bone spurs that led local draft boards to grant a medical deferment that fall, a claim echoed across multiple outlets [2].
2. How that diagnosis fit into the deferment timeline
Trump used four student (college) deferments while at school and, after graduating in 1968, obtained the medical deferment for his feet that is reported to have given him a 1‑Y classification — a temporary disqualification — in the months when local boards were calling men for service [1] [4]. Selective Service records show the medical classification was in place before the draft lottery was implemented; later administrative changes converted some temporary classifications into a permanent 4‑F status, formally marking him as not qualified for service in 1972 [3].
3. Conflicting narratives and Trump’s own statements
Trump has sometimes emphasized his high draft lottery number as the decisive reason he was not sent to Vietnam, language that minimizes or shifts attention away from the medical exemption; contemporaneous interviews and later reporting reveal both claims have been made by him at different times [4] [6]. Reporting by The New York Times and other outlets notes that he himself said the bone spurs were “temporary” and minor, creating a tension between the public description of the diagnosis and his characterization of its severity [7] [2].
4. Why questions remain: missing or limited official medical files
Independent fact‑checks and archival reporting caution that most draft-era medical files were not preserved, and the exact medical documentation submitted to local draft boards is not fully available in the public record, which makes it difficult to reconstruct the full medical basis for the deferment beyond the contemporaneous Selective Service classifications and media accounts [3]. Investigations have therefore relied on Selective Service records, family and tenant accounts, press reporting and later interviews rather than an extant, complete medical file [2] [3].
5. Alternative viewpoints and the broader context
Commentators and historians place Trump’s deferments in the larger pattern of deferment use in the Vietnam era — where college status and medical diagnoses disproportionately shielded better‑off young men from induction — and observers have argued that access and influence mattered as much as the stated medical condition [1] [8]. Some defenders treat the bone‑spurs diagnosis as legitimate and note administrative reclassifications that eventually produced a 4‑F status, while critics emphasize the timing and the absence of preserved medical records as grounds for skepticism [1] [3].