There’s nothing wrong with getting a draft deferment—or several draft deferments. Many young men sought them during the Vietnam War era, and voters haven’t shown any particular reluctance about electing candidates who avoided service in Vietnam. In fact, they’ve sometimes been harder on candidates who went and served honorably than on those who sat out the war (see Kerry, John).

So the fact that Donald Trump received deferments is neither shocking nor disqualifying.

But what is striking is just how much the man who brags he has “the best memory” can’t remember about the nature of his deferments. The guy who at age 70 tells us that he is the “healthiest” person ever to run for president can’t seem to recall how he received a medical deferment in his early 20s.

Trump graduated from New York Military Academy in 1964 at age 18, but being college-bound, he soon got his first educational deferment. He got three more before graduating. And that’s when things get a little fuzzy.

As Mr. Trump’s graduation neared, the fighting in Vietnam was intensifying. The Tet offensive in January 1968 had left thousands of American troops dead or wounded, with battles continuing into the spring. On the day of Mr. Trump’s graduation, 40 Americans were killed in Vietnam. The Pentagon was preparing to call up more troops. With his schooling behind him, there would have been little to prevent someone in Mr. Trump’s situation from being drafted, if not for the diagnosis of his bone spurs.

That Trump had bone spurs severe enough to keep him from military service seems a bit at odds from his activities at the time.