For Donald Trump, his senior year at New York Military Academy was transformative. As I witnessed as his schoolmate that year, the future president, propelled by scandal and emboldened by his father and school authorities, abandoned the challenges of responsibly approaching adulthood and instead embraced a dream world, a polished, glistening shell, a “brand” requiring little personal maturity.

The result is the Donald Trump we recognize today, a man coming apart before our eyes.

September 1964 did not begin well. Donald had been assigned to Company A as captain. Previously he had been a supply sergeant watching over racks of ceremonial rifles that we carried in parades.

His sudden promotion to captain surprised his seniors. George Witek (now White) was the first captain, the highest-ranking cadet officer during Trump’s senior year. He recalled: “There is no way in any scenario that Trump goes from supply sergeant to Company A commander without [pressure from] his father.”

Within the first weeks of the school year, Company A was rocked by scandal and Trump was at the center of it.

As company commander, Donald was charged with the welfare of some 50 younger boys. Nothing had prepared him for this, nor did he seem interested in the job. Instead, he delegated responsibilities to an underling while he retreated to his room and closed the door.

In Company A was a boy named Lee Ains. Along with a slender physique and diffident, non-aggressive manner, Lee was an accomplished accordion player, a fact that for some reason excited the sadistic fancies of the company’s bullies.

At NYMA, hazing was a way of life. One evening, one of the company non-coms attacked Lee, allegedly beating him severely. Instead of taking it in silence, as was our unspoken rule, Lee called his parents, who immediately confronted the academy administration, threatening criminal prosecution.

As the officer in charge, Donald might have been busted for dereliction. Instead, he was transferred to the cadet staff, to a captain’s position entailing no responsibility for other cadets.

Donald’s father Fred, who had cultivated a friendship with the commandant during Donald’s earlier years, now stepped in to advocate for his son. As a result, Donald received special treatment: He could skip various formations; he was allowed off-campus when that privilege was denied to others. “Trump was in a position of power due to his father,” Witek told me.

Together, the academy and Fred Trump moved to establish Donald as a star. Tall and blond, and striking in his uniform, Donald was the image of the Honor School cadet that the academy wanted the public to see.

Donald was made commanding officer of the academy’s 36-cadet Composite Company, which marched in New York’s Columbus Day Parade, a public relations coup arranged by Fred.

Meantime, Donald fostered the notion that he was an irresistible ladies’ man. He bragged about his athletic prowess, claiming that a Major League Baseball scout had tried to recruit him. He tried to convince me that a game-winning blooper had been a homerun hit “out of the stadium.” Academic silver stars decorated his uniform even though his grades did not appear to me to be anything more than middling. (It is impossible to verify his grades because of Trump’s threatened lawsuit should the academy make them public.)

Photographs of Donald in his dress uniform are a visual record of his efforts to polish his nascent “brand.” On his arms, he sported the elaborate stripes of his rank. Near the silver stars on his collar, he added a white shoulder braid. On his chest surmounting four decorations for good conduct and neatness and order, he added two large gold medals.

Donald’s gold medals are a mystery. Medals were awarded at the end of each school year for exceptional academic or military achievement. But neither yearbook records nor Donald’s own biography shows him winning these.

Witek believes that Donald bought them from another cadet who had quit the school.

In any case, sporting prizes earned by others is an element of Donald’s present-day fantasy world: the bogus university, multiple business bankruptcies, suspected tax frauds, and the plundered family charity, not to mention his carefully manufactured image as a billionaire playboy and business genius.

As a private citizen he could preen in the limelight or hide in the shadows at will. But in the glare of the presidential spotlight, we see the corrosive force of a lifetime’s mendacity eating away at the bricks of his imaginary fortress.