You can see in this 2011 video, when Cotton was a Congressional candidate, he plainly states at 2:26, “the desire to serve never left so I did join the Army, and became an infantry officer and an Army Ranger.” Um, no he didn’t. Salon’s Roger Sollenberger, who found several other instances of Cotton making the false claim, has the scoop: Cotton attended the Ranger School, a two-month-long, small-unit tactical infantry course that literally anyone in the military is eligible attend.