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[Gateway Pundit Special Report] Was 17 Year-Old Donald Trump Beaten & Gang Raped Daily At The New York Military Academy?
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Jul 3, 2018, 3:20:48 PM7/3/18
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From the moment 17-year-old Donald Trump was named a captain for his
senior year at New York Military Academy, he ordered the officers under
his command to keep strict discipline. Shoes had to be shined. Beds had to
be made. Underclassmen had to spring to attention.
Then, a month into Trump’s tenure in the fall of 1963, came an abrupt
change.
The tall, confident senior with a shock of blond hair was removed from
that coveted post atop A Company and transferred to a new job on the
school staff — another prestigious assignment, but one with no command
responsibilities. He moved out of the barracks and into the administration
building, swapping jobs with a fellow high-ranking senior who took command
of Trump’s old group.
Explanations vary as to what actually happened.
In Trump’s telling, he was elevated as a reward for stellar performance.
“I had total control over the cadets,” he said in a recent interview.
“That’s why I got a promotion — because I did so good.”
Donald Trump, on the “popularity poll” page of the1964 New York Military
Academy yearbook. The caption below his photo reads “Ladies' man: Trump.”
(Courtesy of New York Military Academy)
Former cadets recall the change differently. They say school
administrators transferred Trump after a freshman named Lee Ains
complained of being hazed by a sergeant under Trump’s command. School
officials, those cadets say, were concerned that Trump’s style of
delegating leadership responsibilities while spending a lot of time in his
room, away from his team, allowed problems to fester.
“They felt he wasn’t paying attention to his other officers as closely as
he should have,” said Ains, who lives in Connecticut and works in the
aerospace industry.
Bill Specht, the cadet who switched places with Trump, recalled an
administrator telling him about the hazing incident and saying that “the
school has decided that they are going to make a switch.”
The incident, previously unreported, offered an early glimpse into a
pattern that would follow Trump through much of his life and has been
evident in his rise as a leading Republican presidential candidate. Often
the center of controversy, he finds a way to emerge by declaring victory
and claiming success, even if the facts are more complicated and some
people around him are left with sour feelings.
The commandant who ordered the transfer, Col. Joseph C. Angello, has since
died. School officials declined to comment.
Trump often points to his five years at the academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson,
about 60 miles from his home town of New York City, as a formative period
in his life that helps qualify him to be commander in chief.
Although he received educational and medical deferments from the Vietnam
War draft, he has said that the school provided him “more training
militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.”
...
A half-century later, discussing that time triggers discomfort and some
bitterness among Trump’s former classmates.
Ains, for instance, spoke of the episode reluctantly, after months of not
returning phone calls, and only through a cracked door when a reporter
appeared at his Connecticut home.
T
Trump’s military school education began in 1959.
He was a 13-year-old with a history of trouble at school, and his father,
Fred Trump, a prominent New York real estate developer, sent him to the
academy to be straightened out.
“As an adolescent, I was mostly interested in creating mischief,” Donald
Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal.”
“I liked to stir things up, and I liked to test people.”
New York Military Academy was founded in 1889 by Civil War veteran Charles
Jefferson Wright. The school boasted of its record whipping rebellious
youths into shape. “Courageous and gallant men have passed through these
portals,” reads an inscription over the front door where frustrated
parents dropped off their defiant sons.
The school was as conservative in both its content and culture. Students
were not allowed off campus during the week. On top of such courses as
math and English, students tackled military history and learned how to
fire rifles and mortars. Girls would not be allowed to attend until more
than a decade later.
Theodore Dobias, a World War II veteran and Army colonel who was a
training officer at the school, said in an interview that he recalled the
young cadet needing time to acclimate to the rigors of academy life.
“At the beginning, he didn’t like the idea of being told what to do, like,
‘Make your bed, shine your shoes, brush your teeth, clean the sink, do
your homework’ — all that stuff,” said Dobias, who became a mentor to
Trump.
...
“I remember having a conversation with him where he said his dad was a
builder, and I said, ‘My dad was a builder, too,’?” said Jeffrey Pollack,
who was in A Company. It wasn’t until several years later that Pollack
picked up a news magazine, read about the Trump family fortune and
realized what his classmate had meant.
But even within the confines of a military school, there were hints of the
brash and boastful persona now known as “The Donald.” Playing baseball, he
stood out as a great first baseman, Dobias said.
“Even then, he wanted to be number one,” Dobias said. “He wanted to be
noticed. He wanted to be recognized. And he liked compliments.”
Thanks to his athletic prowess, Dobias said, Trump was a “big shot” on
campus. “And you get that by working hard, and he did work hard,” Dobias
said.
Fellow cadets recalled discussing how Trump carried himself as if he were
destined for success, even if they were never sure if it was because of
his charisma, his rank, his family’s wealth or some other reason.
“There was some air about him,” recalled Michael Pitkow, “as if he knew he
was just there passing time until he went on to something greater.
“He was self-confident and very soft-spoken, believe it or not, at the
time,” added Pitkow, who said he overlapped with Trump for one year at the
academy. He also noted that Trump, when he commanded A Company, seemed
friendlier than other high-ranking students. “Occasionally, he inspected
my company. He might have said something like, ‘Your shoes look good.’ He
was usually pretty positive, unlike other commanders, who could be very
driven by their egos and the power they commanded.”
...
The sudden swap was a disappointment for Specht, who had been at or near
the top of his class since arriving at NYMA.
“I obviously wasn’t happy about the switch, because it was more work for
me,” he said.
Specht, who served in the Navy after graduating from NYMA and is a Trump
supporter, said he didn’t want to get into a public spat with the
billionaire candidate. His wife, however, took the phone from her husband
during an interview to challenge Trump’s account.
“It’s a fact,” Christine Specht said. “I’m Bill’s wife, and he was not
demoted.”
Trump told The Post that he never saw any hazing at the school.
“I did a good job, and that’s why I got elevated,” he said. “You don’t get
elevated if you partake in hazing.”
Trump, who in 2012 offered $5 million for the release of President Obama’s
college transcript and other documents, said he would not give The Post
permission to review his records from the military academy.
“I’m not letting you look at anything,” he said. “Why would I let you look
at my records? You’re doing a lousy story.”
Dobias, Trump’s mentor, said he had no knowledge of the hazing incident
that allegedly took place during Trump’s command. Dobias said he recalled
that Trump’s replacement had been brought into A Company to keep a closer
watch on cadets.
Moving Trump “was the choice of the commandant, and there must have been a
good reason for it,” Dobias said. “I think the guy who took over A Company
was a little tougher on the kids than Donald was, so they moved [Trump] up
onto the staff.”
When told during a phone interview last month of Dobias’s comments, Trump
called The Post back an hour later with the 89-year-old retired instructor
on the line.
“Dobie, let me ask you this,” Trump said, using his mentor’s nickname.
“Did I have total control over everybody when I ran the company?”
“Yes, you did,” Dobias answered.
For 20 minutes, Trump pressed his former instructor to back up his account
of receiving a “major promotion.”
“Would you tell him officially that the word is ‘promoted’?” Trump told
Dobias.
When asked directly about Dobias’s comment that Trump had been switched
out of A Company because he wasn’t tough enough on the cadets, Trump shot
back: “I guarantee he didn’t say that.”
A moment later, Dobias seemed to strike a middle ground: “Donald Trump
wasn’t tough enough on the kids, so he got promoted on the staff.”
Link: http://bit.do/eoQkF
senior year at New York Military Academy, he ordered the officers under
his command to keep strict discipline. Shoes had to be shined. Beds had to
be made. Underclassmen had to spring to attention.
Then, a month into Trump’s tenure in the fall of 1963, came an abrupt
change.
The tall, confident senior with a shock of blond hair was removed from
that coveted post atop A Company and transferred to a new job on the
school staff — another prestigious assignment, but one with no command
responsibilities. He moved out of the barracks and into the administration
building, swapping jobs with a fellow high-ranking senior who took command
of Trump’s old group.
Explanations vary as to what actually happened.
In Trump’s telling, he was elevated as a reward for stellar performance.
“I had total control over the cadets,” he said in a recent interview.
“That’s why I got a promotion — because I did so good.”
Donald Trump, on the “popularity poll” page of the1964 New York Military
Academy yearbook. The caption below his photo reads “Ladies' man: Trump.”
(Courtesy of New York Military Academy)
Former cadets recall the change differently. They say school
administrators transferred Trump after a freshman named Lee Ains
complained of being hazed by a sergeant under Trump’s command. School
officials, those cadets say, were concerned that Trump’s style of
delegating leadership responsibilities while spending a lot of time in his
room, away from his team, allowed problems to fester.
“They felt he wasn’t paying attention to his other officers as closely as
he should have,” said Ains, who lives in Connecticut and works in the
aerospace industry.
Bill Specht, the cadet who switched places with Trump, recalled an
administrator telling him about the hazing incident and saying that “the
school has decided that they are going to make a switch.”
The incident, previously unreported, offered an early glimpse into a
pattern that would follow Trump through much of his life and has been
evident in his rise as a leading Republican presidential candidate. Often
the center of controversy, he finds a way to emerge by declaring victory
and claiming success, even if the facts are more complicated and some
people around him are left with sour feelings.
The commandant who ordered the transfer, Col. Joseph C. Angello, has since
died. School officials declined to comment.
Trump often points to his five years at the academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson,
about 60 miles from his home town of New York City, as a formative period
in his life that helps qualify him to be commander in chief.
Although he received educational and medical deferments from the Vietnam
War draft, he has said that the school provided him “more training
militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.”
...
A half-century later, discussing that time triggers discomfort and some
bitterness among Trump’s former classmates.
Ains, for instance, spoke of the episode reluctantly, after months of not
returning phone calls, and only through a cracked door when a reporter
appeared at his Connecticut home.
T
Trump’s military school education began in 1959.
He was a 13-year-old with a history of trouble at school, and his father,
Fred Trump, a prominent New York real estate developer, sent him to the
academy to be straightened out.
“As an adolescent, I was mostly interested in creating mischief,” Donald
Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal.”
“I liked to stir things up, and I liked to test people.”
New York Military Academy was founded in 1889 by Civil War veteran Charles
Jefferson Wright. The school boasted of its record whipping rebellious
youths into shape. “Courageous and gallant men have passed through these
portals,” reads an inscription over the front door where frustrated
parents dropped off their defiant sons.
The school was as conservative in both its content and culture. Students
were not allowed off campus during the week. On top of such courses as
math and English, students tackled military history and learned how to
fire rifles and mortars. Girls would not be allowed to attend until more
than a decade later.
Theodore Dobias, a World War II veteran and Army colonel who was a
training officer at the school, said in an interview that he recalled the
young cadet needing time to acclimate to the rigors of academy life.
“At the beginning, he didn’t like the idea of being told what to do, like,
‘Make your bed, shine your shoes, brush your teeth, clean the sink, do
your homework’ — all that stuff,” said Dobias, who became a mentor to
Trump.
...
“I remember having a conversation with him where he said his dad was a
builder, and I said, ‘My dad was a builder, too,’?” said Jeffrey Pollack,
who was in A Company. It wasn’t until several years later that Pollack
picked up a news magazine, read about the Trump family fortune and
realized what his classmate had meant.
But even within the confines of a military school, there were hints of the
brash and boastful persona now known as “The Donald.” Playing baseball, he
stood out as a great first baseman, Dobias said.
“Even then, he wanted to be number one,” Dobias said. “He wanted to be
noticed. He wanted to be recognized. And he liked compliments.”
Thanks to his athletic prowess, Dobias said, Trump was a “big shot” on
campus. “And you get that by working hard, and he did work hard,” Dobias
said.
Fellow cadets recalled discussing how Trump carried himself as if he were
destined for success, even if they were never sure if it was because of
his charisma, his rank, his family’s wealth or some other reason.
“There was some air about him,” recalled Michael Pitkow, “as if he knew he
was just there passing time until he went on to something greater.
“He was self-confident and very soft-spoken, believe it or not, at the
time,” added Pitkow, who said he overlapped with Trump for one year at the
academy. He also noted that Trump, when he commanded A Company, seemed
friendlier than other high-ranking students. “Occasionally, he inspected
my company. He might have said something like, ‘Your shoes look good.’ He
was usually pretty positive, unlike other commanders, who could be very
driven by their egos and the power they commanded.”
...
The sudden swap was a disappointment for Specht, who had been at or near
the top of his class since arriving at NYMA.
“I obviously wasn’t happy about the switch, because it was more work for
me,” he said.
Specht, who served in the Navy after graduating from NYMA and is a Trump
supporter, said he didn’t want to get into a public spat with the
billionaire candidate. His wife, however, took the phone from her husband
during an interview to challenge Trump’s account.
“It’s a fact,” Christine Specht said. “I’m Bill’s wife, and he was not
demoted.”
Trump told The Post that he never saw any hazing at the school.
“I did a good job, and that’s why I got elevated,” he said. “You don’t get
elevated if you partake in hazing.”
Trump, who in 2012 offered $5 million for the release of President Obama’s
college transcript and other documents, said he would not give The Post
permission to review his records from the military academy.
“I’m not letting you look at anything,” he said. “Why would I let you look
at my records? You’re doing a lousy story.”
Dobias, Trump’s mentor, said he had no knowledge of the hazing incident
that allegedly took place during Trump’s command. Dobias said he recalled
that Trump’s replacement had been brought into A Company to keep a closer
watch on cadets.
Moving Trump “was the choice of the commandant, and there must have been a
good reason for it,” Dobias said. “I think the guy who took over A Company
was a little tougher on the kids than Donald was, so they moved [Trump] up
onto the staff.”
When told during a phone interview last month of Dobias’s comments, Trump
called The Post back an hour later with the 89-year-old retired instructor
on the line.
“Dobie, let me ask you this,” Trump said, using his mentor’s nickname.
“Did I have total control over everybody when I ran the company?”
“Yes, you did,” Dobias answered.
For 20 minutes, Trump pressed his former instructor to back up his account
of receiving a “major promotion.”
“Would you tell him officially that the word is ‘promoted’?” Trump told
Dobias.
When asked directly about Dobias’s comment that Trump had been switched
out of A Company because he wasn’t tough enough on the cadets, Trump shot
back: “I guarantee he didn’t say that.”
A moment later, Dobias seemed to strike a middle ground: “Donald Trump
wasn’t tough enough on the kids, so he got promoted on the staff.”
Link: http://bit.do/eoQkF
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