BOSTON, July 26 (UPI) -- With a uniformed honor guard saluting the U.S. flag, a pledge of allegiance to the flag, choruses of the national anthem and an array of three- and four-star generals and other ranks, the Democrats staked their claim to the veterans' vote in Boston Monday.
"The Republicans would have you believe that they are the best part to keep America safe and secure -- and I'm here to tell you that it's not so," said former general and NATO supreme commander Wes Clark at the first veterans' caucus at the Democratic National Convention.
"We served under that flag, we fought under that flag, we've seen our brothers in arms died for that flag and we have buried brave men beneath it and it's our flag -- and not John Ashcroft or Tom DeLay or anyone else is gonna take it away from us," Clark went on, to thunderous applause that drowned out his final words.
From John Kerry's crewmates on his Vietnam War fast boat to former Sen. Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Southeast Asia, and featuring their first Veterans' Caucus at a convention, the Democrats are this year determined to battle the Republicans for the title of the patriotic party.
More than 500 veterans are delegates to this convention -- a record -- and the Kerry campaign is hoping to rally 1 million veterans across the 50 states into active campaigning groups, says John Hurley, the campaign's vets' coordinator.
"John Kerry has made veterans and military families a priority in this campaign," Hurley said Monday.
The key to the groundbreaking plan to use vets as recruiters, Hurley explained, is not only Kerry's war hero record in Vietnam, but the large number of other veterans ready and willing to campaign for him.
Jim Rassmann, a retired Los Angeles policeman, was a Green Beret in Vietnam and a registered Republican until, he heard that Kerry was running. Rassmann was the wounded soldier pulled out of the Mekong River by Kerry in the middle of a firefight. Rassmann's first dramatic account of the rescue was a pivotal moment in the campaign for the Iowa caucuses, the key victory in Kerry's road to the nomination.
Rassmann will be a keynote speaker at the convention this week, and Cleland will have the high-profile task of introducing John Kerry to the convention Thursday night.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 26.4 million veterans, a vast potential voting block. Nearly 6 million served in World War II, another 4 million served in the Korean War and 8 million served in the military during the Vietnam era. Nearly 6 percent are women, and some key battleground states have large number of voters who are vets. There are 1.9 million in Florida, 1.3 million in Pennsylvania, 1.1 million in Ohio and 1 million in Illinois.
"Veterans from across the country are gathering in Boston -- the city where our first American soldiers fought -- and make history as veterans once again," said the former senator from Georgia and the first Honorary Veterans Convention chairman.
The Democrats' appeal to veterans is having some effect. Former Marine Lt. Col. Steve Brozak used to be a registered Republican, but is now the Democratic nominee for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District. Braozak says he left the Republicans "in disgust" for the political attacks on fellow veterans John McCain in the 2000 primaries, and on Cleland in Georgia two years ago.
Kerry has always put his military service at the forefront of his appeal. In his announcement speech last September, he said that his war experience had made him understand what it meant to be an American: "We were no longer the kid from Arkansas nor the kid from Illinois. We were Americans -- together -- under the same flag, giving ourselves to something bigger than each of us as individuals."
Inside the FleetCenter, the Democratic convention headquarters, a special exhibit highlights Kerry's Vietnam service. Titled "John Kerry: A Lifetime of Strength and Service," it includes photos taken in Vietnam by John Kerry's crewmates, and the images of young men in uniform in patrol boats brings back for many older democrats images of the young John F Kennedy in his PT109 boat in the Pacific campaign of World War II.
And in a deliberate echo of the "Rolling Thunder" parades of vets on motorbikes in Washington each Memorial Day, motorcycle convoys of Veterans for Kerry are closing in on Boston from California, Utah, Missouri, Illinois, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
As well as attending the convention, the motorbike vets will join other veterans for Kerry in fundraising visits to the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans and the Veterans' Benefit Clearinghouse in Boston.
"As president, John Kerry will always keep the faith with those who have worn the uniform of the United States," said Hurley. "You will see the Kerry-Edwards commitment to veterans at this convention, and you will see it throughout a Kerry-Edwards administration."
Kerry's platform includes strong commitments to veterans. He promises to mandate full funding for veterans' healthcare, and promises to bring back into the veterans' health system some 500,000 vets who are now excluded because they get different forms of benefits or live in states where veterans' facilities are limited. Kerry also promises to end the "disabled veterans tax," under which military retirees who receive both veterans' pensions and disability compensation lose $1 from their military retirement pay for every $1 they get for disability compensation.
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