Just for the record, as Racicot begins attacking those who criticize Bush:
"According to a press release on the Republican National Committee website, “Marc Racicot graduated from Carroll College in 1970, where he was an Army ROTC Graduate and Class President.” This is curious, since Carroll College only started its ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) program in 2001.
From the available evidence, what really happened is this: The first draft lottery was held in December 1969. . . Marc Racicot was a senior at Carroll College when his draft lottery number was drawn. With a birthday of July 24, 1948, he was 23 out of 366. With that low of a number, he was to be ripe for the draft once he finished college in the spring of 1970. But somehow, Racicot went onto law school at Missoula, where he reportedly joined Army ROTC. By the time he finished law school in 1973, the draft was over, Vietnam was winding down, and Racicot went into the Army–as an officer and lawyer and was stationed in West Germany for 32 months, safe, secure, well-paid and privileged, prosecuting soldiers under the Army’s restrictive system of martial law.
Could he have been drafted? Could he have been subjected to war like the 268 Montana men who were killed in action during Vietnam? Could he have maybe survived combat only to come home and experience a premature, post-war death or some of the mental and medical maladies that still afflict many of his fellow Montanans who answered the call?
A news report from Washington the day after the 1969 lottery was drawn stated: “The estimated 850,000 who will be 19 through 25 and classified 1-A or draft eligible as of Jan. 1 are directly affected by last night's drawing. After the first year, only men 19 at the beginning of the year and older men with deferments which have expired will be affected by the annual lotteries.
“For men now in the 19-25 pool with college or other deferments, the position their birthdays were drawn will determine their liability in the year their deferments expire. For example, President Nixon's son-in-law, David Eisenhower, apparently will be ripe for drafting when his deferment expires in mid-1970 upon his expected graduation from Amherst College. His birthday, March 31, was drawn 30th. Since men in the 30th position in his draft board probably will already have been drafted by June, David would go to the top of his draft board's list of eligibles.”
By May 1970, when I was released from the Army, men with lottery numbers 121 through 150 were being called up. Ultimately, men with numbers as high as 195 were drafted. But not Marc Racicot.
Four years ago, I wondered how somebody with a draft lottery number of 23 could have escaped the 1970 call-up and go on to law school for three years. So I contacted the U.S. Selective Service National Headquarters in Arlington, Va., and asked them for Marc Racicot’s draft board proceedings, which are a matter of public record. Fine, they answered, but where was he registered? I assumed it had to be either in Lincoln County (Libby), where he grew up and went to high school, or else Lewis and Clark County (Helena), where he attended Carroll College and his father coached basketball. Weeks later, on Nov. 24, 1998, they called back: a search turned up no record of Racicot having registered for the draft in either of those counties, according to the Selective Service.
I found my own records from Lewis and Clark County, and those entries end when I was conscripted into the U.S. Army in May 1968. The records show others of my age group who were also drafted, deferred for medical reasons, or had enlisted. But no Marc Racicot.
http://www.queencitynews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=178more at the link
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