‘Let’s see those X-rays’ — Vietnam vet ex-senator challenges Trump to prove bone spurs kept him out of the military

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Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey wants President Donald Trump to prove that the bone spurs that purportedly kept him from serving in the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War are real.

Kerrey — a former Navy SEAL officer and Medal of Honor recipient who lost part of his right leg in 1969 and served in the senate from 1989 too 2001 — demanded Trump present X-rays of his feet during an appearance on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on Wednesday in response to Trump’s recent comments regarding the late Sen. John McCain.

“While John McCain was flying combat operations in Vietnam, you were, I think, falsifying that you had bone spurs in order not to go to Vietnam,” Kerrey said. “Now, I know lots of people who avoided the draft, but this isn’t what he’s saying. He said ‘I physically couldn’t go.’ Well, Mr. President, get your feet X-rayed and let’s see those bone spurs. I don’t think he has them.”

Trump had previously criticized McCain as “a war hero because he was captured,” among other things, before the late senator and Vietnam POW’s death in August 2018. On Wednesday, the commander-in-chief complained that he “didn’t get a thank you” for approving McCain’s funeral.

“Not my kind of guy,” Trump said of McCain during a visit to a factory in Limo, Ohio. “But some people like him and I think that’s great.”

Speaking to Anderson Cooper, Kerrey stated that he believes Trump’s thought McCain was a “fool” for going to Vietnam.

“We were the suckers. We were the stupid ones,” Kerrey said. “We were the ones that didn’t have the resources to be able to get out of the draft.”

Trump received five draft deferments that kept him out of the draft’s reach, for of which were forr college, the New York Times previously reported. After he graduated in 1968, Trump received a bone spurs diagnosis that resulted in a 1-Y medical deferment that exempted him from military service.

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Jared Keller

Former Managing Editor

Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.