On January 11 , 2005 , Cotton enlisted in the U.S. Army . Cotton declined offers to serve in the Army J.A.G. Corps and instead volunteered for the infantry . Cotton had resolved to serve as an Army infantryman in his third year of law school while watching live news coverage of the September 11 attacks , and had begun a regimen of physical exercise and studying military history . In March 2005 , he entered Officer Candidate School , and in June 2005 was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry . In May 2006 , Cotton was deployed to Baghdad as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom as a platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division . In Iraq , he led a 41-man air assault infantry platoon in the 506th Infantry Regiment , and planned and performed daily combat patrols . In December 2006 , Cotton was promoted to first lieutenant . He was assigned as a platoon leader for the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment ( The Old Guard ) at Fort Myer , Virginia . In October 2008 , Cotton was deployed to eastern Afghanistan . He was assigned within the Train Advise Assist Command – East at its Gamberi forward operating base ( FOB ) in Laghman Province as the Operations Officer of a Provincial Reconstruction Team , where he planned daily counter-insurgency and reconstruction operations . His 11-month deployment ended on July 20 , 2009 and he returned from Afghanistan . He then returned to farming his family ranch
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Tom Cotton