From weeklystandard.com
… A rural Arkansas farm boy, Cotton made his way to Harvard and Harvard Law, where he graduated with distinction, with a stop to study at the Claremont Graduate University in between.
Cotton was walking out of a law school class when he learned terrorists had struck the World Trade Center. A world of legal wealth and prestige lay before him, but inside he sensed he soon would be going to war.
Those who know Cotton well are struck by his systematic demeanor, which leads him to lay plans before acting. He had obligations to fulfill before he could volunteer for Army service. He had committed to clerk for a federal appellate judge. Then he went into private practice to pay off his student loans. An Army friend wrote him from Iraq not to worry. “I’m afraid the war will still be on by the time you can get here.”
It was.
The Army recruiter examined his record and began explaining that Cotton, given his credentials, would qualify for a nice job with the rank of captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps.
Cotton politely interrupted. “I don’t think you understand. I’m here to volunteer for the infantry.”
After Ranger school, he arrived in Iraq a second lieutenant in the 101st Airborne, where he led soldiers in combat in southern Baghdad. Then he spent a year leading an Old Guard platoon burying soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. (“There is no greater responsibility than what we did for those families who never again will see their loved ones,” he says.)
Then he volunteered for a tour in Afghanistan in Taliban-infested Laghman Province just north of the Tora Bora mountains.
[This whole story is a must-read, the story of a man of honor who gave up much to serve his country, to be a veteran, and to come home and see if he can serve his people in the political field. Would that we had a super majority of more Congressmen like him! – JS]
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