Do Better is an op-ed column by writer Lincoln Anthony Blades that debunks fallacies regarding the politics of race, culture, and society — because if we all knew better, we'd do better.

When I look at President Donald Trump, I see a pot-bellied, 71-year-old man with a doughy frame. But in 1968, when he was a 22-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate, Trump was a tall, fit athlete who played football, tennis, and golf. His age and clean medical history qualified Trump as a perfect candidate for the draft to serve in the United States Army and fight in the Vietnam War, but he avoided combat after receiving a 1-Y medical deferment, which he has said was due to "bone spurs in his heels." More than half a million American men were stationed in Vietnam by the end of that year, which was the bloodiest 12 months of the conflict. On the day of Trump's graduation from the University of Pennsylvania, 40 Americans were killed in Vietnam, according to The New York Times.

The son of Fred Trump, a wealthy New York real estate developer, Donald Trump did what many other wealthy young men were allowed to do: He dodged the draft. Between 1964 and 1972, a few months before the draft ended, he received five deferments — in addition to his "bone spurs" claim, the other four were based on his educational status. He received two deferments while he attended Fordham University from 1964 to 1966, and two more after transferring to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

As a draft dodger, Trump never knew the horrors of war, but in 1997, he laughed when telling radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was like his "personal Vietnam." "It is a dangerous world out there. It’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era,” Trump said to Stern, discussing his sex life. "I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”

Today, Trump struggles to recall the most basic facts about the medical condition that was the basis for his final deferment. He doesn't remember the name of the doctor who provided him with the note of proof and has repeatedly failed to provide a copy of it to The New York Times. He's also forgotten which of his heels had the spurs, now just claiming it was both. (During the 2016 presidential election, the affliction wasn't noted by Dr. Harold Bornstein, a physician who performed a physical on Trump and found that he had "no significant medical problems." in his medical history)

Unlike the 2,709,918 soldiers who fought in Vietnam, Trump never served. He wasn't injured like the 304,000 Americans who fought in the war, or among the more than 58,000 killed in combat. Despite this inexperience, he is now in charge of the U.S. armed forces, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, and the Marine Corps as commander-in-chief. As president, he is tasked with dictating to all military generals and admirals which battles should be fought, where they should be fought, and who gets to fight in them on behalf of the United States.

He is certainly not the first American leader to receive draft deferments. Former vice president Joe Biden received five student deferments, former VP Dick Cheney received five deferments, and former president Bill Clinton received deferments and even penned a letter to an ROTC officer thanking him for "saving me from the draft." (It should also be noted that before Clinton's administration, LGBTQ servicemen and women were banned from serving. In his time, the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy began, which forced them to conceal their identities or risk being discharged, effectively condoning discrimination.) This column will afford these men no absolution for their decisions, but what makes Trump's behavior obscene is that despite having never served, he has fashioned himself as the arbiter of military courage.