Latest news with #militaryschool
Washington Post
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump got shipped off to military school. Now we all pay the price.
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. As a child, Trump, by his own account, was something of a terror. He has boasted that he once gave a teacher in elementary school a black eye. He defied his father's directive to stay in Queens, instead sneaking onto the subway with a friend to buy switchblades in Manhattan. But his father had the last word: Off to NYMA with you. By all accounts, Trump's start at military school was rough. There was no family cook, no private bathroom, no mother to excuse his misbehavior. Instead, he lived in boot-camp-style barracks, marched on the 300-acre campus's sprawling parade grounds and learned to obey the adults — or else. Trump was just one more plebe, one more subject to the drill sergeant, Theodore Dobias — known as 'Doby.' Dobias smacked students with his open hand if they committed an infraction. He ordered misbehaving cadets to fight each other. He rode Trump hard, pushing the rich kid from Queens to make his bed, shine his shoes, clean the sink. Trump studied Dobias's tactics and adopted many as his own, his classmates said. Trump loved wielding authority — one student called him 'Mr. Meticulous' — and when Trump became a junior supply sergeant in Company E, he relished ordering punishments for younger cadets. When one student broke formation, Trump allegedly delivered whacks on the rear with a broomstick. When another boy left his bed unmade, the young disciplinarian tore the sheets off the bed, threw them on the floor and fought the boy, trying to push him out a second-story window, the former schoolmate, Ted Levine, told The Post years later. That Columbus Day parade in 1963 was in many ways a culmination of Trump's military career. He was in charge, front and center, back on his home turf. But when the NYMA boys got to Fifth Avenue — passing exactly the spot where the developer's son would one day build his own Trump Tower — they saw a group of Catholic schoolgirls were lined up to lead the parade. Trump had been told his contingent was going to be in front. 'Leave this to me,' Trump told Dobias. He went and found someone in charge, had a little talk and came back victorious. He led the parade. It made him feel large. Many years later, Trump would boast that although he didn't serve in the military, he believed he had received more military training in high school than actual service members did. 'I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people,' he told biographer Michael D'Antonio. 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.
NHK
21-05-2025
- Politics
- NHK
Pakistan school bus blast kills 6, including 4 children
A school bus was hit by an explosion in southwestern Pakistan, killing six people, including four children. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claims the blast was a terrorist attack supported by India. The incident occurred in Balochistan province on Wednesday. The local government says the bus was carrying over 40 children who were heading to their military-run school. It says an initial investigation shows that an improvised explosive device was likely used in the attack. Prime Minister Sharif released a statement calling it a cowardly attack by terrorists operating under Indian patronage. He did not provide grounds for his claim. Sharif stressed that no effort will be spared to foil the nefarious intentions of the Indian-backed terrorists aiming to disrupt the peace of Balochistan. India and Pakistan have launched military strikes against each other since a terror attack in the disputed Kashmir region. The two countries agreed to a ceasefire on May 10, but it is feared that tension between them will escalate.
CNN
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Three children and two adults killed in suicide attack on school bus in Pakistan
A suicide attack on a school bus in southwestern Pakistan killed three students of a military-run school on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest attack that underscores the deteriorating security situation in the region. The explosion took place in the city of Khuzdar in restive Balochistan province and targeted a school bus carrying 'a large number' of children of military officials, according to Yasir Dashti, a senior government official from the province. 38 people were wounded in the attack, Dashti said. 'The bus was carrying Army Public School children,' said Kaleem Ullah, a police official from Khuzdar. Army Public Schools are a network of school across Pakistan for children of military staff. At least three children and two adults were killed, according to a statement from the Pakistan military. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack so far. Balochistan has been rocked for years by a separatist insurgency that seeks greater political autonomy and economic development in the strategically important and mineral-rich mountainous region. Pakistan's military accused 'Indian proxies' of being behind the attack in a statement released shortly after the incident. It did not give evidence for its claims. Pakistan has previously accused its neighbor and arch-rival of being behind attacks in Balochistan. New Delhi has denied the accusations. CNN has contacted the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Army for a response. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif 'strongly condemned the cowardly attack' in a statement and repeated the military's accusations that India was behind the attack. India has long accused Pakistan of sheltering militant groups that have carried out attacks across the border, including a recent massacre of tourists in India-administered Kashmir, allegations Islamabad has denied. Tensions between the two spiraled after that massacre and resulted in a brief four-day conflict earlier this month that was the most sustained fighting between the two in decades. A fragile ceasefire has held since then. Wednesday's attack comes just over two months after the deadly hijacking of a train by separatist militants in Balochistan. In that incident the Baloch Liberation Army took more than 350 people – some of whom were security personnel – hostage, killing 27 of them. Children have also been the target of some of Pakistan's most devastating terror attacks. At least 145 people, mostly school children, were killed in by Pakistani Taliban militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2014 – the worst terror attack in the country's history. The Pakistani Taliban's most notable target was then 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who was singled out and shot on October 9, 2012 as she rode to school in a van with other girls.
CNN
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Three children and two adults killed in suicide attack on school bus in Pakistan
A suicide attack on a school bus in southwestern Pakistan killed three students of a military-run school on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest attack that underscores the deteriorating security situation in the region. The explosion took place in the city of Khuzdar in restive Balochistan province and targeted a school bus carrying 'a large number' of children of military officials, according to Yasir Dashti, a senior government official from the province. 38 people were wounded in the attack, Dashti said. 'The bus was carrying Army Public School children,' said Kaleem Ullah, a police official from Khuzdar. Army Public Schools are a network of school across Pakistan for children of military staff. At least three children and two adults were killed, according to a statement from the Pakistan military. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack so far. Balochistan has been rocked for years by a separatist insurgency that seeks greater political autonomy and economic development in the strategically important and mineral-rich mountainous region. Pakistan's military accused 'Indian proxies' of being behind the attack in a statement released shortly after the incident. It did not give evidence for its claims. Pakistan has previously accused its neighbor and arch-rival of being behind attacks in Balochistan. New Delhi has denied the accusations. CNN has contacted the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Army for a response. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif 'strongly condemned the cowardly attack' in a statement and repeated the military's accusations that India was behind the attack. India has long accused Pakistan of sheltering militant groups that have carried out attacks across the border, including a recent massacre of tourists in India-administered Kashmir, allegations Islamabad has denied. Tensions between the two spiraled after that massacre and resulted in a brief four-day conflict earlier this month that was the most sustained fighting between the two in decades. A fragile ceasefire has held since then. Wednesday's attack comes just over two months after the deadly hijacking of a train by separatist militants in Balochistan. In that incident the Baloch Liberation Army took more than 350 people – some of whom were security personnel – hostage, killing 27 of them. Children have also been the target of some of Pakistan's most devastating terror attacks. At least 145 people, mostly school children, were killed in by Pakistani Taliban militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2014 – the worst terror attack in the country's history. The Pakistani Taliban's most notable target was then 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who was singled out and shot on October 9, 2012 as she rode to school in a van with other girls.
CNA
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CNA
Four children killed in school bus attack in southwestern Pakistan: Officials
QUETTA, Pakistan: At least four children were killed on Wednesday (May 21) and over 30 wounded in a suspected suicide bombing that targeted a bus carrying students from a military run school in southwestern Pakistan, officials said. "A bus carrying children of the (Army Public School) was targeted with a bomb, the nature of which is still being determined," Yasir Iqbal Dashti, a senior local government official in Khuzdar district of Balochistan province, told AFP. "The initial probe suggests it was a suicide bombing," he added. A senior police official confirmed the death toll to AFP on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorised to speak to the media, adding that it could rise. The school caters to the children of army personnel and civilians living in the area. In 2014, the Army Public School in Peshawar in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was attacked by gunmen who killed more than 150 people - mostly students. The horrific attack sparked a massive crackdown against militancy that had thrived for years in the border regions. Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi offered his "heartfelt sympathy" to the families of the victims, adding that "beasts who target innocent children deserve no mercy".
