Donald Trump may never have actually served in the military, but he attended what the New York Times calls "a military-themed boarding school," and because of that, Trump says in a new book, "[I] always felt that I was in the military." Trump talks about the experience in Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, a biography of the real estate mogul that includes extensive interviews with him. The Times got an early look at the book by Michael D’Antonio, which is due to be released Sept. 22. As for the aforementioned New York Military Academy, where Trump was sent by his parents for bad behavior, Trump says he got "more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military" while there.
Trump, of course, received draft deferments during the Vietnam War thanks to "heel spurs on both feet," which he happily showed D’Antonio during the course of their interviews. He also got a high draft lottery number, and noted in the interviews, "My number was so incredible and it was a very high draft number. Anyway so I never had to do that, but I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people," ostensibly referring again to the military academy, which employed some ex-military instructors. As D’Antonio notes in the book, not many other alumni "would compare military school with actual military service." The Boston Globe noted last month that while at the military academy, Trump's all-male fellow students voted him "Ladies Man." (More Donald Trump stories.)