Does anyone besides me find it slightly disturbing when Donald Trump salutes the troops? It’s galling to me, especially knowing that Trump sought and received five deferments from the Vietnam War, four as a student and one medical deferment for bone spurs, based on a letter from a private podiatrist who was a family friend.
I must stipulate that I never served in the military. The draft ended a year before I became eligible. I don’t know much about my family tree, but I have a brother who was in the Air Force and an uncle who served in the Army.
There’s been recent social media chatter about Donald Trump sending young men and women into his war of choice in Iran, while none of his sons or daughters, Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, or Barron, ever entered military service. Military service is absent across multiple generations of the Trump family, despite Trump’s frequent use of military imagery and rhetoric. Donald himself attended a military preparatory school after exhibiting behavioral problems at the private schools he attended.
I’m asking the audience for a lifeline. Does anyone know of any Trump family member, including ancestors, who has ever put their life on the line in defense of their country?
None of Donald Trump’s siblings ever served? Not Fred Trump, Jr., not Maryanne Trump Barry, not Elizabeth Trump Grau, nor Robert Trump. Donald did have an Uncle John who worked as a civilian scientist on radar research, but he wasn’t in the military.
Donald’s father, Fred Trump, was the right age to have served during World War II, but he, too, received deferments. Apparently, real estate developers were deemed essential workers, and his work, which included building housing for shipyard workers, defense employees, and military families, was deemed war-essential. Fred's being married made him a lower priority in the draft.
Donald Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was born in 1869 in the village of Kallstadt, then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. At the time, Bavaria enforced mandatory military service for young men, with few exemptions. By the mid‑1880s, Friedrich was approaching the age at which he would be required to report for conscription.
Instead of entering service, Friedrich left Bavaria in 1885 at age sixteen, emigrating to the United States without completing the required military obligation. He settled in New York, later moving west during the Gold Rush era, and began building the fortune that would anchor the Trump family in America.
Years later, after accumulating wealth, Friedrich attempted to return to Bavaria with his wife and children. That effort triggered a formal review by Bavarian authorities. In 1905, the Bavarian Interior Ministry ruled that Friedrich had emigrated illegally to avoid compulsory military service. As a result, he was stripped of his Bavarian citizenship and ordered expelled, forcing him and his family to return permanently to the United States. Donald Trump’s grandfather was a Bavarian draft dodger.
Friedrich Trump descended from a long line of wine‑growing peasants and tradesmen who lived in the Palatinate region for centuries. Parish records, tax rolls, and civil registries establish births, marriages, and occupations — but not military service.
Despite Bavaria’s system of compulsory service, no surviving military records identify a Trump/Drumpf ancestor by name as having served in the Bavarian Army, Napoleonic‑era forces, or 19th‑century German state militias.
Because Bavaria had conscripted its youth over a long period, it’s possible that somewhere along the line, some Trump family member served in the military. I’m just saying there’s no record of it.
Perhaps Barron could start a new trend.