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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has over the years routinely puffed up his political bona fides by embellishing his military service record, claiming in multiple interviews and campaign ads not only to have been a U.S. Army Ranger, but to have served in action as a Ranger — and, at one point, to have earned the Bronze Star "as a Ranger."
Salon reported on Friday that during Cotton's first congressional campaign, the Harvard Law grad claimed to have served as a Ranger and acquired "experience" as a Ranger in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. A number of people came to the senator's defense, observing that as a graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger School, Cotton — who once said that "bombing makes us safer" — is within his rights to lay colloquial claim to the title. Salon's original article has been upheld as correct by the fact-check site Snopes, but even those who believe it's acceptable for Cotton to call himself a Ranger, as opposed to the more accurate "Ranger-qualified," would likely agree that he can't claim battlefield experience as a Ranger, nor that he served as one. Yet the Arkansas senator appears to have done both, on more than one occasion.