How did Donald Trump receive a medical deferment from the Vietnam War draft?
Executive summary
Donald Trump avoided service in Vietnam by receiving four student deferments while in college and a later medical deferment for bone spurs in his heels that led to a permanent 4‑F classification; contemporaneous Selective Service records and later reporting document the sequence but leave some details — including the medical records and which doctor examined him — unclear [1] [2] [3].
1. Four student deferments set the stage
Trump first kept induction at bay through successive student classifications while at Fordham and then the Wharton School, receiving four college deferments that delayed any draft eligibility during the peak years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam [4] [5].
2. The bone‑spur diagnosis produced the decisive medical deferment
After graduating in 1968 Trump was diagnosed with bone spurs in his heels, a finding that converted his draft status from student deferments to a medical classification that ultimately made him ineligible for service except in a time of national emergency and, later, yielded a permanent 4‑F ruling [5] [2] [6].
3. How that diagnosis was obtained: competing accounts
Reporting traces the medical letter to a Queens podiatrist who, according to the doctor’s daughters, provided the diagnosis as a favor to Trump’s father — an account that The New York Times and CNN reported but could not fully corroborate because primary medical files from the era are largely unavailable [3] [7] [2].
4. Public contestation: “Cadet Bone Spurs” and rival claims
Critics and some contemporaneous figures cast the bone‑spur deferment as emblematic of the wealthy using influence to avoid service — a theme repeated by Senator John McCain and media coverage — while Trump and his campaign at times emphasized his Selective Service paperwork and, inconsistently, a high lottery number; independent documentation confirms the five deferments but does not settle questions about motive or favoritism [8] [9] [1].
5. What the official records do — and do not — show
Selective Service records obtained and reported by outlets such as The Smoking Gun and later fact‑checks establish the sequence (four student deferments, a 1‑Y medical classification transitioning to 4‑F) and that the medical deferment remained in effect through the war years, yet many original draft‑era medical charts have not been preserved, leaving some specific medical details and the full provenance of the doctor’s note unresolved [1] [2] [7].
6. Two valid interpretations and the limits of available evidence
One defensible reading is that Trump used the legal deferment avenues available at the time — college enrollment and a medical finding — to avoid Vietnam, a practice that disproportionately benefited men with means; an opposing view, advanced by Trump allies, stresses reliance on paperwork and denies impropriety, but neither side can produce final medical documentation in the public record to decisively prove or disprove allegations that favors or fabrication occurred [5] [3] [10].