Former US President Donald Trump once compared his dating life to the harrowing experiences of soldiers in the Vietnam War in an recently resurfaced interview from 1997. Trump described his efforts to avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) as his very own “personal Vietnam,” declaring himself a “brave soldier” in the dangerous battlefield of dating.
In an interview from 1997 on “The Howard Stern Show“, Trump said, “It’s amazing, I can’t even believe it.I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world, it is a dangerous world out there. It’s like Vietnam, sort of. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”

Trump also joked that his dating exploits warranted the Congressional Medal of Honor, a highly respected military award given for acts of bravery in combat. This comparison drew significant backlash for trivializing the experiences of Vietnam War veterans.
The 1997 interview was not an isolated incident. In a 1993 appearance on the same show, Trump boasted about his promiscuous lifestyle during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. He suggested that men who did not serve in Vietnam should not feel guilty, claiming that “dating during that time was equally as dangerous.”
Trump himself did not serve in the Vietnam War, having received five draft deferments—four while in college and one for bone spurs in his feet. His campaign later said that the bone spur condition was minor and temporary.
In December 2015 however, while campaigning for the presidency, Trump expressed guilt over not serving and mentioned that helping to build a Vietnam War memorial in New York was his way of making amends.