Readers React: Trump went to Vietnam, and readers couldn’t resist mentioning bone spurs

You could see this coming the moment it was announced that President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s second summit would be in Hanoi: The commander in chief, who as a new college graduate in 1968 was diagnosed with bone spurs and was therefore exempt from the military draft, would be traveling to Vietnam 44 years after the end of the war there.

Letter writers pounced.

Most of the letters that mentioned Trump’s draft exemption in light of the aborted summit Wednesday and Thursday were one-line jokes made at the president’s expense. A small portion of the letters, however, were from readers genuinely upset by the spectacle of a president being celebrated in a place he successfully avoided during a war decades ago.

Martin Wauson of Westminster is one of those readers:

How nice — Trump finally made it to Vietnam more than 40 years after our “involvement” there ended, and he could be protected by others rather than taking up arms himself.

If he had moral qualms about the Vietnam War, that would have been one thing, but he doesn’t seem to be bothered by that type of thinking, so I’m guessing patriotism and duty to country are only for others, not him.

More than 58,000 Americans lost their lives in the Vietnam War while Trump stayed home, and this week he showed up there to meet with the repressive dictator of North Korea. The man has no clue, and as a Vietnam veteran I have no clue why any veteran thinks any of this is OK.

Phillip Gold of Westlake Village asks if Trump now qualifies for an award:

Well, well, well, Trump finally made the trip to Vietnam. I guess his bone spurs are cured.

Does this qualify him for the Nobel Peace Prize? A Silver Star? Or, maybe, just a white feather?

Stephen C. Lee of La Habra similarly joked about Trump’s bone spurs:

I didn’t see it being mentioned in his latest medical report, but apparently the president’s doctor has signed off on his bone spurs so he can, at last, serve his country by going to Vietnam.

Valley Glen resident Rhys Thomas faults Trump for committing a diplomatic faux pas:

Forget the farcical summit between Kim and Trump. The headline reporting the end of the meetings between North Korea and the United States should have been “Trump walks out on Vietnamese hosts.”

Once again, our president showed his complete ignorance of history and utter lack of class by not attending the final meal arranged by his gracious Hanoi hosts.

And we call this diplomacy?

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