Donald Trump Feels Guilty for Never Serving in the Military

Donald Trump said that he has always felt guilty for never serving in the military, and some of his career choices have been attempts to make up for that.

Speaking at a rally in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire Tuesday night, Trump decided to take questions from the audience. The first question, from Daniel Ward who identified himself as a civil engineer, was about the source of Trump’s patriotism. “What makes you love this country the way you do?” Ward asked Trump.

“I didn’t serve, I haven’t served,” Trump said of the military, saying he got deferments for service based on his education and a foot injury. “I always felt a little guilty,” Trump admitted. “I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve built the Vietnam Memorial in New York… In a way it’s a way of making up. I’ve built a lot of things and people forget, but the Vietnam Memorial to this day, if I’m walking down the street, the military so often they come up to me and they say, Mr. Trump, thank you for building the Vietnam Memorial. They still thank me for it. The military, they have unbelievable heart.”

Trump donated over $1 million in 1983 to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in New York.

Previously, Trump has said that he felt like he served in the military because he attended a military boarding school. “I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people,” Trump said in a biography of his time at the New York Military Academy. He also said his school years provided him with “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.”