WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito joined the Army Reserve while he was a college student because his lottery number had made it likely he would be drafted for the Vietnam War, college roommates said Wednesday. | You mean like when John Kerry joined the Naval Reserve when his student deferment was denied? Oh, that's right, Reserve duty dosen't count when you're a conservative. |
Alito was part of the Army's ROTC program during his years at Princeton -- 1968 to 1972 -- a period when the war in Southeast Asia escalated and more American men were drafted. | So, he enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Program, you know, a college program to train Army officers, and he wasn't planning to join the Army, Reserve or otherwise? |
In 1971, President Nixon ended student deferments, increasing the pool of potential military inductees. Four lottery drawings were held during that period in which a birthday and 366 blue plastic capsules dictated the order in which all men of draft age would be called.
In the first drawing, held December 1, 1969, Alito received the lottery number of 32, according to the U.S. Selective Service. Although the military was calling up men with numbers as high as 195, Alito had a student deferment. | Yes, as a student OFFICER! |
He participated in the ROTC program and did two summers of training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Fort Indiantown Gap in Annville, Pennsylvania. With graduation looming, the student deferment gone and Yale Law School waiting, Alito joined the Army Reserve. | SEE: Reserve Officer Training Program |
"It was draft-related," college roommate Mark Dwyer said of Alito's decision. "I joined the teacher preparation program. We were all focused on the draft lottery when those numbers got called. We thought about where we were. "Sam looked like he was sure to be drafted. He said, 'If I'm going into the Army, I might as well be an officer.'" | Uh, dude, why do you think he was in the ROTC? |
Another roommate, David Grais, said he remembered Alito had a low lottery number. Upon graduating from Princeton, Alito attended Yale and "did active duty after law school," Grais said. | Which is how the Army trains officers that don't go to West Point |
"Judge Alito is proud to have served his country in the U.S. Army Reserves," said Steve Schmidt, a White House spokesman.
Vietnam War service was a critical issue in the 2004 presidential campaign and has shadowed President Bush since the previous campaign.
| Only in the minds of his critics |
Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 after graduating from Yale University and questions have been raised about whether efforts were made to get him in the Guard to avoid service in the war. Vice President Dick Cheney received five student and marriage deferments of service during the war.
Democratic Sen. John Kerry, the party's 2004 nominee, volunteered for the Navy and served two tours of duty in Vietnam. | The hell he did, he joined the Naval Reserve and got called up to active duty. |
In the questionnaire Alito submitted to the Senate in 1990, when he was up for a seat on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he wrote of his military service:
"I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army upon graduation from college in 1972. After law school, I was on active duty for training from September to December 1975. I was in the Army Reserves from 1972 to 1980, when I was honorably discharged as a captain." | I'll bet he will even let us see his DD-214. How about you, Sen. Kerry? |
Documents from Princeton show that Alito, then an Army cadet, received six weeks of "practical application in military leadership at the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps' basic summer camp at Fort Knox, [Kentucky], June 12 to July 23" in 1970. "He will train as a small unit leader and instructor in realistic exercises, and will receive command experience and the opportunity to apply classroom knowledge in the field," the document said. Alito delayed entering the service while at law school.. | Like I said, the Army wanted him to get that training as much as he did |
and then spent time in 1975 at Fort Gordon, Georgia, for signal officer training. He was on the inactive reserve for a period and then promoted to captain before he was honorably discharged in 1980. The military draft ended in 1973. | And we've been hearing about it and who's service is honorable ever since. DISCLAIMER: I was in Junior ROTC at Smith Vocational High School in Northhampton, Mass just down the road from Amherst with all it's lefty colleges. We got protested against as warmongering highschoolers. Graduated in 1970. We sweated out the draft as well. My number was in the mid three hundreds, so I was safe. Didn't enlist till 1976 after Vietnam. So I guess I'm not qualified to join the court either. |
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