Did a Queens Podiatrist Help Donald Trump Avoid Vietnam? [barf alert]

New York Slimes via MSN ^ | 12/26/2018 | Steve Eder

[Olog-hai]

In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.

Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.

The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“I know it was a favor,” said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.

Elysa Braunstein said the implication from her father was that Mr. Trump did not have a disqualifying foot ailment. “But did he examine him? I don’t know,” she said. …

[redcatcherb412]

My enlistment was in 1966. I have no doubt that depending on the tactical situation in Vietnam at the time. When they needed more cannon fodder they would probably take one armed one eyed anybody anyway and anyhow.

[Clutch Martin]

I read where Gregg Allman shot Duane Allman in the foot with a .22 rifle so that Duane could escape the draft.

I also used to work with a guy that was drafted into the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam and on his first furlough to Saigon he walked to the airport purchased The Swissair ticket for Switzerland hopped on the plane got off the plane in Switzerland and declared himself what do whatever it is they declared themselves when they go AWOL. I guess he came back when Carter allowed draft dodgers to come back to the US with no charges pending. Good worker. I asked him why he did it and he told me because after 6 months of Marine Corps Duty in Vietnam he knew he wasn’t going to live through the next six months.

[Enterprise]

I guess he wasn’t a draft dodger because he was on active duty. He would be listed as a deserter by the Marines, although he might have decided he was a conscientious objector when he went AWOL. Anyway, he was there in Vietnam, I wasn’t. I served stateside, so I won’t sit in judgement. Carter was President and he forgave them. Yeah, time to move on.

[I_Like_Spam]

Sort of sleazy to trash one’s own father after he’s been deceased for more than a decade.

However, if someone could find a letter in Dr. Braunstein’s records or effects actually verifying this alleged favor, this could be interesting. Sort of like a Killian Letter version 2.0