Kerry and His Merry 'Band of Brothers'

The fabled moment of the 2004 presidential campaign came when James Rassmann appeared at an Iowa rally in January to thank John Kerry for saving his life in Vietnam 35 years ago. An emotional Rassmann described an injured Kerry who put his own life at risk -- "he could have been shot and killed" -- to turn his boat around and pull him out of the water. Even though he's a longtime Republican, Rassmann said, he plans to vote for his Kerry this fall. "I'd be very, very surprised if anything he told you was not the truth," he declared with conviction.

According to pollster John Zogby, Kerry's campaign is hoping there are a lot more Rassmanns out there -- that is, Republican veterans who want to send one of their own to the White House this fall. "It's a group that can clearly be picked off," he says. While veterans usually respond to Republican appeals to family values and patriotism, Kerry is making significant inroads into that support. "The Vietnam veterans are a brotherhood -- all veterans are a brotherhood -- and this is a brother," Zogby adds. "If [the Bush campaign] is not worried, then somebody is not paying attention."

If the 2004 election is anywhere near as close as 2000, veterans could indeed make the difference in choosing a president. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are more than 26 million veterans, about a third of whom served in Vietnam. Add family members to that number and you get a huge voting bloc that could determine the outcome. Steve Thomas, a spokesman for the non-partisan American Legion, is delighted that his constituency is finally getting the attention they deserve. "It's helpful that among the spate of issues being discussed, the treatment of American patriots will be among them," he says.

More importantly, Kerry is finally giving Vietnam veterans a platform. "They're eating it up because no one has ever done it before," says Douglas Brinkley, the author of "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War." Kerry has promised to be a "veteran's veteran" if elected. But he also has more going for him besides the appeal of electing a decorated serviceman. Many veterans are also unhappy about the Iraq war. Bobby Muller, who heads the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and has endorsed Kerry, says, "We're hearing from so many of our guys that might traditionally be conservative guys [that] the war in Iraq has really pissed them off."

He points out that the war strikes especially close to home for Vietnam vets: "For the overwhelming majority of Vietnam veterans, having gone to war was the most significant experience in their lives, as it clearly has been for Kerry." Watching the conflict in Iraq "brings back an awful lot of bad memories of another failed war."

There are other reasons veterans are unhappy with Bush. Reserve officers resent being stuck with extended tours of duty because the military is stretched so thin. Older veterans are irate that the president ignored their needs in his budget. Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Commander-in-Chief Edward S. Banas, Sr. blasted Bush's 2005 budget as "further [evidence] that veterans are no longer a priority with this administration." He called the 1.8 percent increase in veteran's medical care funding "a disgrace and a sham."

As The American Legion's Thomas succinctly puts it, the budget "offered much for defense [but] offered very little for the defenders."

Kerry has been quick to tap into this growing alienation. He has already set up a massive veterans outreach effort in more than half the states. In the days before some of the recent primary contests, veterans called other veterans to get them to the polls. The veteran community is "very well organized institutionally in the way you think about, say, churches on the right," Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg says. "It'll be a key organizing part of his campaign." It's the reason why Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a triple amputee who lost his seat in 2002 because Republicans painted him as soft on security, has been by Kerry's side at victory rallies. Kerry has openly declared his intention to rely on the same "band of brothers" that helped him survive Vietnam to get him into the White House.