Getty Trump's mentor: Military school is like the real thing

Donald Trump raised eyebrows—again—with his statement that he always felt he was in the military because of his teen years at a military-style boarding school, but his mentor from that time says he's not off base.

In a forthcoming biography of the real estate mogul and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Trump said going to the New York Military Academy offered him "more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military."


"Well, he was at a military school, five years. That's just like being in the army believe me," Trump's mentor during his days at the academy, Colonel Theodore Dobias, told POLITICO. "That's six o'clock in the morning, 10:30 at night. Five days of school. From 8 till 3:30 ... Study at 7:30, taps at 10:30. And believe me that's the way it was. There was 400 kids and that's what we did."

Trump's comments, first reported by the New York Times, especially struck a chord because of the multiple draft deferments he received during the Vietnam War and his recent comments questioning Sen. John McCain's war hero status.

But Dobias, who is now 89 and fought in World War II in the Army for the 10th Mountain Division, heaped praise on Trump, who he coached in baseball at the academy. He said Trump, who came in as an eighth grader, was a "very fine baseball player" and a "B+" level student. Now, Dobias said, Trump is the most promising candidate in the 2016 field.

"He's got a way of expressing things down to Earth. He doesn't use $45,000 words," Dobias said. "He just talks to people like another person."

If Trump gets the nomination, Dobias added, "he will be president of the United States."

"And then things will start shaping up. In four years you'll see a big difference in our country," Dobias said. "People will start getting together, respecting each other."

