was scalito in the army?

[still_one]

[Submariner]

1. ROTC to duck draft

[yknot]

2. We know he's been a member of an army of right-wing jackasses n/t

[leftchick]

3. chickenhawk ROTC draft dodger!

like the rest of the repukes.

[DrDan]

6. attending ROTC does not allow one to duck the draft

Following graduation, there is an obligation that must be kept - typically as an officer.

[gratuitous]

4. He didn't go to an Ivy League school to get ordered around

His draft number was 32 in 1972, which meant that he stood a real good chance of being called up, so he joined the Princeton ROTC. According to a story today on the Daily Kos, his rationale was that if he had to go into the military, he might as well be an officer. Alito's recent statements notwithstanding (that he joined the Concerned Alumni of Princeton out of his deep concern that his beloved ROTC program was being terminated), no one can remember him ever wearing his uniform on campus, and his own entry in the yearbook somehow neglected to mention his membership in ROTC.

The conclusion I draw, as someone who was about to face the same prospect a couple of years later, Alito joined ROTC as a hedge against being drafted and he never took his responsibilities in ROTC very seriously. It was a way he had available to him to dodge being sent to Vietnam -- and I can't fault him for that -- but considering the relative popularity of the military at that time among his peers, he didn't want to risk the approbation that would have been coming to him if he had worn his uniform or listed his membership in ROTC.

It's only now that he remembers his deep commitment to ROTC and his alarm that the program was terminated. Very convenient.

[DrDan]

5. sounds legit to me:

"He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Signal Corps after his graduation and assigned to the Army Reserve, one of nine in his class to receive a commission in the Army Reserve. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1975, he served on active duty from September to December, 1975, while attending the Officer Basic Course for Signal Corps officers at Fort Gordon, Georgia. The remainder of his time in the Army was served in the inactive Reserves. He had the rank of Captain when he received an Honorable Discharge in 1980."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._Alito,_Jr.#Personal_life

I personally see nothing wrong with the way he fulfilled his military obligation

I also spent a couple of years in ROTC, 4 years on active duty, many years in reserves and many years in inactive reserves.

This looks to be quite different than the brat-boy approach that junior took.

[onenote]

9. agreed

Several of my college classmates took a similar route -- they joined ROTC in response to a low draft number. At the time, they had every reason to expect that when they graduated, they would end up in Vietnam (albeit as an officer). They couldn't and didn't foresee (lucky for them) that the US presence in Vietnam would drop from over 150,000 to under 25,000 between 1971 and 1972.

I want Alito defeated, or at least filibustered, but I don't think the characterization of him as a chickenhawk fits.

onenote

[NoAmericanTaliban]

7. ROTC & being a military officer are not the same thing

I was in ROTC and generally things don't get serious until your senior year when you go to a mini-boot camp in the summer. You don't get commissioned until you complete the program & swear an oath.
If you receive a scholarship then you are obligated to serve or pay it back - its a legal contract. If there is no scholarship - which was my case - then you can leave at any time before you complete the program. Since there has been no talk of scalito military record, I assume that he dropped out of ROTC, probably when the draft ended. They are spinning the ROTC service as a way to promote his patriotism. If he was such a patriot he should have enlisted and volunteered for Vietnam. What he did was 'cut & run' when faced with the possibility of a draft. This pretty much makes him a draft dodging chickenhawk of which there there is an abundance in this administration. He'll feel right at home.

[onenote]

10. he did have a military record

I don't think he "dropped out" of ROTC. According to wikipedia, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Signal Corps after his graduation and assigned to the Army Reserve. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1975, he served on active duty from September to December, 1975. The remainder of his time in the Army was served in the inactive Reserves.

By the way, I don't think not enlisting makes you a chickenhawk. I know a lot of guys who got drafted and served in Vietnam, and a few guys (older than me) who went the ROTC route and ended up in Vietnam. I don't consider them "chickenhawks" because they didn't enlist and volunteer for service at the first opportunity.

onenote

[still_one]

11. Thanks, I wanted an accurate account

that does NOT mean he isn't a jerk, but it means his story on this point is consistent

[onenote]

14. agreed

As I've posted elsewhere, I'd like to see a filibuster if that's what it takes to stop his confirmation.

onenote

[Clara T]

8. Alito tells us that he had very passionate feelings about the military

"The war was a subject of some conversation on campus, but I think we tended to talk more about what was going on in our classes," Grais said. "We didn't talk much about politics."
Dwyer did not recall Alito ever defending the Vietnam War or even wearing his ROTC uniform except during the couple of hours per week that he had to attend training.

Now does that square with the man who, you'll recall, said today he was so angry "that that Princeton would somehow be sullied if people in uniform were walking around the campus"? As you can see from his college yearbook entry at top, he didn't even mention his ROTC service.

Alito proved to be a lucky man. When he graduated in the summer of 1972, he was one of just nine members in his class to win a coveted slot in the Army Reserves. And in fact, the role of American troops in Vietnam was winding down -- something that Alito and his classmates didn't know would happen two years earlier.
He stayed in the reserves during his three years of Yale Law School, served three short months of active duty upon graduation in 1975, and was honorably discharged from the Reserves as a captain in 1980.

So now Alito tells us that back in 1972 he had very passionate feelings about the military.

Maybe so -- but apparently he didn't feel as strongly about doing what the military was doing at that point at time, which was fighting a war. Today, the Supreme Court nominee invented a whole new phenominon -- he became a retroactive "chickenhawk."

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/cat_national.html

[Atman]

12. Salvation Army

He's an experienced ding-a-ling.

[deutsey]

13. Satan's Legions

I believe he's still in the Reserves...