Trump ‘felt’ that he was in the military at NY academy

Businessman Donald Trump likened his attendance at a military academy to serving in the armed forces, according to a forthcoming book. 

Trump noted during interviews for a biography due out later this month that he had a very high draft lottery number after multiple deferments for Vietnam. 

{mosads}“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,” Trump told former Newsday reporter Michael D’Antonio, according to The New York Times.

Trump attended the New York Military Academy starting in eighth grade after years at a prep school in Queens that included giving a teacher a black eye “because I didn’t think he knew anything about music,” Trump told the book’s author, according to the Times. 

“Like all students at the Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., campus, he wore a uniform, participated in marching drills and was expected to conform to a hierarchy imposed by instructors, some of whom had served in the military,” according to the Times.

The newspaper, which got excerpts of the interview and book set to be released Sept. 22, reported that the author interviewed Trump for more than six hours over multiple sessions but that they ended abruptly after D’Antonio spoke with a longtime Trump enemy, according to the book.

“The biography offers candid and sometimes unflattering assessments of Mr. Trump by co-workers, friends, enemies and, most entertainingly, by his ex-wives,” the Times noted.

Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, caught flak earlier this summer when he questioned Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) status as a war hero, saying he preferred those who didn’t get captured.