With a John Kerry-George Bush face-off for the presidency now a virtual certainty come November, how might the voting pattern of the nation's veteran population impact the election's outcome? The so-called veteran bloc, calculated at the high end and probably exaggerated, is said to number as many as 50 million voters: an estimated 27 million U.S. veterans (8.5 million from the Vietnam era), 1.4 million service members currently on active duty, a similar number of guard and reservists, to which are added the close family circles of all three groups. It is generally assumed that, by some unspecified and fluid margin, a majority of these voters incline traditionally toward the Republicans, but not necessarily because they cast their ballots as veterans.

Not every working stiff or small-town Rotarian who served in the U.S. armed forces wakes up in the morning thinking “I'm a veteran.” It's just a piece of the existential package.

But in the context of Bush vs. Kerry veterans’ identity and special interest politics may achieve a degree of visibility and significance unprecedented for a presidential campaign. It's arguable that a considerable number of veterans will be drawn into the fray as veterans, and will base their votes substantially on highly subjective responses to one of two broad concerns, which in both instances, not incidentally draw their emotional wattage from contradictory historical interpretations of the Vietnam War.

In this scenario, Kerry would benefit to the degree these veterans take a more kindly view of his combined combat credentials and involvement with the antiwar movement, over Bush's less than gung-ho service record on the home front in the Texas National Guard. Among veterans who see Kerry’s antiwar history as “unpatriotic,” Bush's avoidance of combat will be less decisive.

Kerry's advantage is that only he, not Bush, can mobilize in-country Vietnam veterans, the most organized and influential group within mainstream veterans’ organizations and the peace movement alike, on the basis of a powerful, if mystical, appeal to “brotherhood.”

That many of these “brothers” will vote for Kerry simply because he is one of them already seems clear from the rapidly expanding Veterans for Kerry movement picking up momentum in communities all over the country. The small but vocal right-wing vets, whose voices have been temporarily amplified by the national media, for balance or mischief one never knows, have staked their political challenge to Kerry on the imaginary claim that American POWs continue to be held by “communist” governments in Indochina. Seems like a sleeper in today's political market, but who knows? This is America, and Rambo’s world view is not without its following.

Ironically Kerry's campaign may play less well in the veteran peace movement than the veteran mainstream. Vet activists who've kept council fires burning for years in Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) and Veterans for Peace (VFP) somewhat ignored by the media, but with a genuine grassroots presence nationwide, are divided on Kerry> But their reasons are more substantial than symbolic.

There's general agreement that pro-Iraq war, pro-Patriot Act, pro-preemptive-strike, free-trader Kerry will be an instant target of protest the day he takes office. But the anybody-but-Bush sentiment seems predominant in the discussion among VFP and VVAW members in interviews and on the Internet. Some will vote for John Kerry from genuine admiration, others holding their noses. The Eugene Debs element, larger than one might think, will again adamantly refuse a vote for what they do want. I will respectfully depart their ranks on this one, believing the right winning the battle in the center.

A veteran voting bloc? Who'd a thunk it? It's the Year of the Veteran, and this bloc may just swing Kerry right into the White House.

Michael Uhl, of Walpole, is a founding member of Veterans for Peace. He lead military intelligence team with the 11th Infantiy in Vietnam in 1968-69.