Picture the scene. The year is 1968.

A turbulent America is at the peak of its long entanglement in Vietnam. The camera pans to the left, and there we spy our hero. Donald Trump, twenty-two years old, tall and lean of limb, the fair-haired scion of a prominent New York family.

Donald has recently completed his studies, a period during which he received four academic deferments from military service. In 1964 he graduated from New York Military Academy, where he marched and drilled proudly with the best of his cohort. Then Fordham came calling, and later Wharton School, from which he graduated that spring with a degree in economics.

Donald prides himself an athlete and sportsman, and for good reason. At college he excelled at football, squash, and tennis. And just that spring, he discovered what would become a lifelong love of golf, learning the game on the links near Wharton. He was a formidable competitor.

With health, wealth, and good looks, it was in many ways a charmed life for Donald. But an important decision shadowed the horizon. With the last of his academic deferments now expired — and war still raging in Southeast Asia — Donald’s deployment to Vietnam was a real possibility. The United States could call on him to serve.

No matter. Donald was no coward. He considered himself a patriot — even a leader — and understood that to fight for his country was an honor. Only in the crucible of conflict, he was often heard to say, is a man’s character truly tested.

On September 19, 1968, that portentous day arrived: Donald was summoned by the Armed Forces to a medical examination to test his fitness for war.

How confounded must he have been at the doctor’s solemn diagnosis — a debilitating bone spur, fixed in Donald’s heel. How distraught must have been his eyes to see “DISQ” written on the examination sheet, rendering him ineligible for military service. How much must this be the work of a malign God — forsaken, prevented from serving your country.

How Donald’s cries must have rent the heavens.