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Conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh reportedly avoided the Vietnam draft because of anal cysts. In a 2011 book critical of Limbaugh, journalist John K. Wlson wrote, "As a man who evaded the Vietnam War draft with the help of an anal cyst, Limbaugh is a chickenhawk fond of making hyperbolic attacks on [liberal] foreign policy". [90]
And while Barack Obama was just 12 years old when the Vietnam War draft ended, Donald Trump received four student deferments and a medical-leave deferment for bone spurs to avoid fighting in Vietnam.
At times, his remarks on veterans and military service have veered into outright mockery. In a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, Trump likened his determination to avoid sexually transmitted infections to serving in combat. His sex life in the 1980s was “my personal Vietnam,” he said. “I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
During the 1968–1974 period, Presidents Johnson and Nixon decided against calling up National Guard units for service in Vietnam. However, military documents show during the Vietnam War, almost 23,000 Army and Air Guardsmen were called up for a year of active duty; some 8,700 were deployed to Vietnam.
Despite that fascination, Trump took multiple deferments to avoid service in the Vietnam War. When he became president, Trump staffed his cabinet with senior generals.
[133] [134] Harris was an anti-draft organizer who went to jail for his beliefs (and was briefly married to folk singer Joan Baez), [130] Miller was the first Vietnam War refuser to publicly burn his draft card (and later became partner to spiritual teacher Starhawk), [131] Elmer refused to register for the draft and destroyed draft board files ...
A biographer of Trump said the president once showed him the bone spurs that got him out of the draft, but he "didn't see" any evidence of them.
The US has not had a draft since 1973, the year it completed its military withdrawal from Vietnam. (Trump received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War draft, four because he was a college ...