50 YEARS LATER, DISAGREEMENTS OVER YOUNG TRUMP’S MILITARY ACADEMY RECORD.

ORDEN DE LOS CABALLEROS DE 

"SAN IGNACIO DE LOYOLA"

(CHRISTIFIDELIS LAICI,58)

Bandera de la Hispanidad en las Américas, 

adoptada como símbolo de las Américas 

por la séptima conferencia internacional 

Americana de Montevideo 

el 13 de diciembre de 1933.

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.”

“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.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.

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.

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