Trump got shipped off to military school. Now we all pay the price. - Fisher WaPo

[question everything]

Young Donald Trump was anything but happy to be sent to military school. His father, Fred, had had it up to here with his son’s disobedience. Trump was 13 and being shipped to New York Military Academy, a boarding school about an hour north of the city, near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. From the moment Trump arrived in 1959, a stocky teen suddenly stripped of the conveniences of wealth, he was looking for a lifeline, scrambling for something he could master.

Trump was never going to be a stellar student. He played on sports teams and did well, but he found his true home by mastering military rituals and discipline. He had no interest in going to actual war — he managed to win four deferments and a medical waiver to avoid service during the Vietnam conflict — but he was drawn to the school’s strict rules and instant accountability. He liked setting the pace for other cadets, he liked putting on white gloves and full-dress uniform, and he loved the pageantry — especially the parades.

And so, six decades later, on Saturday, we will all get a hefty dose of Trump’s boyhood fantasy of military showmanship. This combined 79th birthday party and wild ego trip — a wayward president’s version of an aging dad buying the red sports car — could cost taxpayers up to $45 million and threatens to rip the District’s streets to smithereens.

Just as Trump did in high school, when he was put in charge of a special NYMA drill team to march in New York City’s Columbus Day parade, now, as leader of the vaguely free world, he will star as drillmaster in chief. There will be tanks! Men in lockstep! Helicopters! The Army’s Golden Knights parachuting down to the Ellipse to present an American flag to El Presidente himself!

It’s a grand old American tradition to put a fair amount of energy into living out high school fantasies, but this is ridiculous. It is also thoroughly in character for Trump.

(snip)

High school fantasies die hard. Most of us keep them to ourselves. On Saturday, all 340 million of us get to live Trump’s. Somebody, please, buy the old man a pair of white gloves for this birthday. It’d make him so happy, maybe he’d leave us alone for a bit.

https://wapo.st/4l4mP2E

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[msongs]

1. at first glance read that as Fisher PRICE WaPo lol nt

[multigraincracker]

2. I graduated from a military school in the 60s.

Remember one classmate that he reminds off. Rich family and a bully. One day at morning formation and inspection, he picked on this little guy. The little guy challenged him to a fight in front of the whole school. The bully had to back down as he would he lose everything, his rank and get expelled.
I always think of that when I think tfg. Love to see someone challenge him to a fist fight in front of the whole world and watch him chicken out.