"That flag is our flag"

But that didn't stop him. "Let me tell you something," Carville said in a sudden moment of quiet directness. "John Kerry is a better man than George W. Bush. I'm talking man to man. Man to man, it ain't even close."

It was an electrifying moment for the veterans in the room, even if Carville's ad hominem attack doesn't fit within Kerry's "Stronger America" theme. And by the time Carville was done, there was no chance of getting it back. Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who lost limbs in Vietnam, lost an election thanks to Republican smears questioning his patriotism, and who now serves as the emotional center of the Kerry campaign, closed the deal with veterans by following Carville's charge.

As Cleland articulated it, Kerry's bid for the veterans' vote runs along two tracks. First, as someone who has seen combat up close, he'll use troops only as a last resort. Second, as someone his supporters call a "veterans' veteran," he'll ensure that soldiers who do serve will get the benefits they need when they return home.

Cleland contrasted Kerry's vow with Bush's record. "You don't create a shooting war and close veterans' hospitals," Cleland told the crowd. "You don't avoid the war of your generation and then send another to die."

Earlier in the event, one of Kerry's Swift boat "brothers" vowed that, if Kerry called them for one last mission and said they were going to hell, "he'd have a full crew."

Cleland took it one step further with harsh commentary on the incumbent and confident predictions for the future. "We're not going to hell," he said. "We've been to hell. Now we're going to the White House."

For veterans like Peter MacDonald, the event was emotional and profound, a clear sign that they are now officially welcome in a Democratic Party that has often, in the post-Vietnam world, held the military at arm's length. MacDonald, a 57-year-old Connecticut resident who's looking for full-time work after being laid off by a defense contractor, served in the Army in the jungles of Vietnam. Outside the veterans event Monday, the man in the blue blazer and American Legion cap needed a moment to collect himself before talking -- it was a "sensitive area," he said, in the awkward vocabulary of tough guys who find themselves talking about their feelings.

Once MacDonald started, he found it hard to stop. He used to vote Republican, he said, but he watched as the religious right took his party away from him. Now he's an independent, in the process of registering as a Democrat, and he'll vote for Kerry in November. He knows that the Democrats are pandering to him on some level, and he knows that they're using veterans like him -- that having veterans vouch for Kerry will help the Democrats win over other voters who are wary of Bush but more wary still of changing leaders in the middle of a dangerous time. MacDonald says he doesn't mind.

"You want to use us? No problem," MacDonald said. "Why? Because he'll get us out of this damned mess in Iraq. He knows we shouldn't be there. He doesn't want any more Vietnams."

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