Gold 'Foot Soldier' Statue Mocking Trump's Bone-Spur Deferment Appears on the National Mall; White House Hits Back
A gold-painted satirical statue appeared on November 9 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., near the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden, on Madison Drive NW between 7th and 9th Streets. Titled 'The Foot Soldier,' it depicts President Donald Trump seated with one shoe off, examining his right foot — a reference to the bone-spur diagnosis in his heels that earned him a draft deferment during the Vietnam War. It went up two days before Veterans Day, November 11.
The work is by The Secret Handshake, an anonymous art collective that has installed more than a dozen satirical pieces targeting Trump and his administration around Washington. A plaque on the base says, in mock tribute, that Trump is 'a soldier in spirit, who marched to the front lines of dodging the draft, armed with a perfect diagnosis of bone spurs.' A six-foot toe-shaped mascot named 'Toey' stood alongside. The group said the statue would remain through Veterans Day.
Trump received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War: four for his education and one on medical grounds, the bone-spur diagnosis. That diagnosis has followed him for decades.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle responded: 'Trump Derangement Syndrome is a sick and incurable disease that has rotted the brains of these Democrat activists. President Trump will never waver in fighting for and protecting the American people.' The collective replied that it was honoured by the diagnosis, but that it would not qualify them to skip out on the latest war Trump has created, the way his bone-spur prescription once did for him.
Source: USA Today
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 华盛顿国家广场航拍（资料图）。图：Carol M. Highsmith，公共领域，经维基共享资源 / Aerial view of the National Mall in Washington (file photo). Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
