BOSTON, July 26 - They rolled in on wheelchairs or hobbled on canes, wore one-sleeved shirts or breathed through tubes, decked themselves out in biker vests or American Legion hats. Hundreds of military veterans - many bearing the physical and emotional scars of the Vietnam War - mustered here on Monday to enlist as John Kerry's shock troops in a campaign to win the hearts and minds of independent voters and nullify Republicans' traditional advantage on issues of national security.
Before them, beneath a mammoth American flag, sat the crewmates who served under the young Lieutenant Kerry as he skippered their Swift boats through the treacherous Mekong Delta.
There was Jim Rassmann, the Green Beret whom Mr. Kerry pulled from the water under enemy fire. And there was Max Cleland, the triple amputee and former Democratic senator from Georgia whose defeat in 2002 - by an opponent who ran commercials linking him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden - has become a rallying point for Democrats determined not to let Republicans who avoided combat bludgeon them with patriotic symbols.
"That flag is our flag," declared Gen. Wesley K. Clark, another combat-wounded Vietnam veteran and now retired, as those who could stand jumped to their feet and those who could not just hollered. "We served under that flag. We've seen men die for that flag. And no John Ashcroft or Tom DeLay or Dick Cheney is going to take that flag away from us."
A party known more for protesting peaceniks than for flag-waving warriors, the Democrats are putting military veterans front and center throughout their convention. They are allowing Mr. Kerry to brandish his combat experience to bolster his credentials as a would-be commander in chief in a time of war, when voters' natural impulse is to keep the incumbent in office. And they using it to answer Republican accusations that he is too soft on defense, too vacillating for a country needing decisive leadership.
To be sure, veterans are hardly united behind Mr. Kerry, who antagonized many active soldiers and veterans of earlier conflicts with his searing antiwar testimony in 1971, and who remains a symbol of the chasm that the Vietnam War opened up in American society. For many veterans, their fury is still fresh at the fellow combatant who gained fame by saying he, and they, had been guilty of "atrocities" in Vietnam.
So it was all the more striking, organizers said, that more than 1,000 people turned out on Monday for the first-ever Democratic veterans caucus. More than 500 veterans are among the convention delegates.
Members of his Vietnam Swift boat crew are giving prime-time speeches and speaking at countless off-camera functions all week. One, the Rev. David Alston of Columbia, S.C. , told the convention Monday night that Mr. Kerry was a man of courage and conviction who never lost his cool. The veteran-lionizing culminates on Thursday with addresses by Mr. Rassmann and Mr. Cleland, who is to introduce Mr. Kerry as the party's nominee.
Democratic officials said that they had even tried to find an old Navy Swift boat they could ship to the convention hall to use as a backdrop, but that the idea proved too expensive.
There is plenty of martial imagery on display, however, and it serves many purposes, Democrats say, not least by letting them retell the story of Mr. Kerry's early life, when he was decorated for valor in Vietnam and then returned home to help lead the opposition to the war.
Indeed, Mr. Kerry has used his war record - and the fellow veterans who bear witness to it - to answer nearly every conceivable attack. Weak on national security? He trots out his three Purple Hearts. A flip-flopper? He runs commercials featuring Del Sandusky, a former crewmate, saying Mr. Kerry's decisiveness under fire "saved our lives."
His combat duty also gives Democrats their most potent line of personal attack at Mr. Bush - one that veterans feel free to press here, despite Mr. Kerry's professed desire that the conventioneers stick to more positive themes .
But perhaps the most important function that veterans are serving is in testifying to what they call Mr. Kerry's bravery, his character and even his oft-questioned personal warmth.
"He's not aloof and standoffish," Jim Wasser of Kankakee, Ill., another former crewman on Mr. Kerry's boat, assured the delegates at the caucus. "He's a caring, compassionate, courageous, man's man."
Veterans have helped Mr. Kerry again and again in his political career, but it was in 1984 that they first melded into an effective political brigade on his behalf.
In the Democratic primary for an open Senate seat, Mr. Kerry's rival, James Shannon, attacked him for protesting the Vietnam War after fighting in it. When Mr. Kerry demanded an apology, Mr. Shannon replied, "That dog won't hunt" - and Vietnam veterans who backed Mr. Kerry began touring the state, heckling Mr. Shannon and calling themselves the "Dog Hunters."
Again in the presidential campaign, the Dog Hunters and Mr. Kerry's crewmates have been responding to attacks on Mr. Kerry's war record, this time mainly from a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that says Mr. Kerry is "unfit to serve" as president. Members of the group, led by John O'Neill - who was recruited by the Nixon White House to debate Mr. Kerry at the height of his involvement in the antiwar movement - say they particularly resent Mr. Kerry's 1971 testimony about "atrocities" by American troops in Indochina.
On Sunday night, at a reception in Boston for Mr. Kerry's fellow veterans and other Kerry intimates, several said they welcomed the attacks because they give Mr. Kerry cause to retell his own story. "I'll pay for their stage and microphone," said Chris Greeley, a friend of Mr. Kerry who said his draft number was never selected. "Do they really want to have that conversation?"
John Norris, Mr. Kerry's national field director, said that he did not know how many votes Democrats would be able to harvest among the nation's 26.5 million veterans.
Apart from organizing en masse, Mr. Norris said the handfuls of veterans who invariably are waiting to greet Mr. Kerry's plane wherever it lands serve a vital function.
"You can tell there's a bond and a link with them that he doesn't necessarily have with other people that he meets," he said. "It's almost like family."
As much as veterans do for Mr. Kerry, though, the experience of pitching in on his campaign, they say, is doing wonders for them.
"John's candidacy is offering up a certain catharsis," said Mr. Rassmann, the former Green Beret who burst from Mr. Kerry's past to thank him for saving his life two days before the Iowa caucuses. "I know it is for me. My wife says that all these compartments in my mind I've kept tightly shut are opening up."
He recalled that a man had approached him after a rally in Iowa earlier this year, tears in his eyes, and said, "'I'm a vet and a Republican, and tonight, for the first time, somebody thanked me for my service.'"
"John's being recognized for his service," Mr. Rassmann said. "So are we."
DAVID M. HALBFINGER
New York Times
Before them, beneath a mammoth American flag, sat the crewmates who served under the young Lieutenant Kerry as he skippered their Swift boats through the treacherous Mekong Delta.
There was Jim Rassmann, the Green Beret whom Mr. Kerry pulled from the water under enemy fire. And there was Max Cleland, the triple amputee and former Democratic senator from Georgia whose defeat in 2002 - by an opponent who ran commercials linking him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden - has become a rallying point for Democrats determined not to let Republicans who avoided combat bludgeon them with patriotic symbols.
"That flag is our flag," declared Gen. Wesley K. Clark, another combat-wounded Vietnam veteran and now retired, as those who could stand jumped to their feet and those who could not just hollered. "We served under that flag. We've seen men die for that flag. And no John Ashcroft or Tom DeLay or Dick Cheney is going to take that flag away from us."
A party known more for protesting peaceniks than for flag-waving warriors, the Democrats are putting military veterans front and center throughout their convention. They are allowing Mr. Kerry to brandish his combat experience to bolster his credentials as a would-be commander in chief in a time of war, when voters' natural impulse is to keep the incumbent in office. And they using it to answer Republican accusations that he is too soft on defense, too vacillating for a country needing decisive leadership.
To be sure, veterans are hardly united behind Mr. Kerry, who antagonized many active soldiers and veterans of earlier conflicts with his searing antiwar testimony in 1971, and who remains a symbol of the chasm that the Vietnam War opened up in American society. For many veterans, their fury is still fresh at the fellow combatant who gained fame by saying he, and they, had been guilty of "atrocities" in Vietnam.
So it was all the more striking, organizers said, that more than 1,000 people turned out on Monday for the first-ever Democratic veterans caucus. More than 500 veterans are among the convention delegates.
Members of his Vietnam Swift boat crew are giving prime-time speeches and speaking at countless off-camera functions all week. One, the Rev. David Alston of Columbia, S.C. , told the convention Monday night that Mr. Kerry was a man of courage and conviction who never lost his cool. The veteran-lionizing culminates on Thursday with addresses by Mr. Rassmann and Mr. Cleland, who is to introduce Mr. Kerry as the party's nominee.
Democratic officials said that they had even tried to find an old Navy Swift boat they could ship to the convention hall to use as a backdrop, but that the idea proved too expensive.
There is plenty of martial imagery on display, however, and it serves many purposes, Democrats say, not least by letting them retell the story of Mr. Kerry's early life, when he was decorated for valor in Vietnam and then returned home to help lead the opposition to the war.
Indeed, Mr. Kerry has used his war record - and the fellow veterans who bear witness to it - to answer nearly every conceivable attack. Weak on national security? He trots out his three Purple Hearts. A flip-flopper? He runs commercials featuring Del Sandusky, a former crewmate, saying Mr. Kerry's decisiveness under fire "saved our lives."
His combat duty also gives Democrats their most potent line of personal attack at Mr. Bush - one that veterans feel free to press here, despite Mr. Kerry's professed desire that the conventioneers stick to more positive themes .
But perhaps the most important function that veterans are serving is in testifying to what they call Mr. Kerry's bravery, his character and even his oft-questioned personal warmth.
"He's not aloof and standoffish," Jim Wasser of Kankakee, Ill., another former crewman on Mr. Kerry's boat, assured the delegates at the caucus. "He's a caring, compassionate, courageous, man's man."
Veterans have helped Mr. Kerry again and again in his political career, but it was in 1984 that they first melded into an effective political brigade on his behalf.
In the Democratic primary for an open Senate seat, Mr. Kerry's rival, James Shannon, attacked him for protesting the Vietnam War after fighting in it. When Mr. Kerry demanded an apology, Mr. Shannon replied, "That dog won't hunt" - and Vietnam veterans who backed Mr. Kerry began touring the state, heckling Mr. Shannon and calling themselves the "Dog Hunters."
Again in the presidential campaign, the Dog Hunters and Mr. Kerry's crewmates have been responding to attacks on Mr. Kerry's war record, this time mainly from a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that says Mr. Kerry is "unfit to serve" as president. Members of the group, led by John O'Neill - who was recruited by the Nixon White House to debate Mr. Kerry at the height of his involvement in the antiwar movement - say they particularly resent Mr. Kerry's 1971 testimony about "atrocities" by American troops in Indochina.
On Sunday night, at a reception in Boston for Mr. Kerry's fellow veterans and other Kerry intimates, several said they welcomed the attacks because they give Mr. Kerry cause to retell his own story. "I'll pay for their stage and microphone," said Chris Greeley, a friend of Mr. Kerry who said his draft number was never selected. "Do they really want to have that conversation?"
John Norris, Mr. Kerry's national field director, said that he did not know how many votes Democrats would be able to harvest among the nation's 26.5 million veterans.
Apart from organizing en masse, Mr. Norris said the handfuls of veterans who invariably are waiting to greet Mr. Kerry's plane wherever it lands serve a vital function.
"You can tell there's a bond and a link with them that he doesn't necessarily have with other people that he meets," he said. "It's almost like family."
As much as veterans do for Mr. Kerry, though, the experience of pitching in on his campaign, they say, is doing wonders for them.
"John's candidacy is offering up a certain catharsis," said Mr. Rassmann, the former Green Beret who burst from Mr. Kerry's past to thank him for saving his life two days before the Iowa caucuses. "I know it is for me. My wife says that all these compartments in my mind I've kept tightly shut are opening up."
He recalled that a man had approached him after a rally in Iowa earlier this year, tears in his eyes, and said, "'I'm a vet and a Republican, and tonight, for the first time, somebody thanked me for my service.'"
"John's being recognized for his service," Mr. Rassmann said. "So are we."
DAVID M. HALBFINGER
New York Times
