Veterans for Congress: Mobilizing to Serve Their Country Again

Tommy Sowers is no stranger to formidably uphill operations. He's led a team of Green Berets in two deployments to Iraq and a platoon in Kosovo during the war in the Balkans.

Now his combat boots, replaced by polished black slip-ons, are in the mud of another battleground – one whose terrain has also proved sticky and fractious.

The 34-year-old Sowers is running as a Democrat for Missouri's 8th Congressional District seat against a well-liked 14-year incumbent Republican, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson.

"My generation of veterans is having a tough time getting into Congress," said Sowers, who says that poor congressional oversight on military operations was one of the factors that spurred his candidacy. "But Green berets are trained to run insurgencies and that's what I'm doing in Missouri."

Dodging bullets and drafting legislation are not divergent challenges for Sowers, and a chorus is rising that not enough people who send troops to war have ever seen one themselves.

Veterans make up 22 percent of Congress, according to the Veterans Campaign, a non-partisan, non-ideological training program that prepares veterans to run for public office. In 1969, following World War II and the Korean War, veterans held 74 percent of the seats.

"We're seeing a more politically mature group of vets running for office this year," said Pete Hegseth, the executive director of Vets for Freedom, a nonpartisan political action committee that supports candidates with strong national security platforms. "They're better than ever."

Vets for Freedom and other groups estimate that at least a couple hundred veterans are running for midterm congressional elections this year, up significantly from previous cycles.

Seth Lynn, executive director of the Veterans Campaign, said he started the group to redress a deficiency in information available to politically aspiring veterans.

"Vets make great leaders," he said, "but military service doesn't necessarily prepare you that well to get elected."

Veterans typically have been away from their districts sporadically and for extended periods of time, and thus have not been able to establish a robust grassroots network. What's more, they generally come to their races without the wealth or backbone of support that incumbents have established.

The group's annual workshop last month at George Washington University drew 100 aspiring politicians, with panels on how to finance a campaign, interface with the veteran's community and, of course, tweeting. The Veterans Campaign has recently partnered with the university to offer more workshops across the country.

"I'm learning the fundamentals and maybe somewhere down the road I'll run," said Joshua Welle, 30, an active-duty naval officer who served in Afghanistan. "But being a vet isn't enough; it's one small piece of what Americans want in their elected officials."

Jay Parker, a political media consultant and retired colonel cites overemphasizing one's record as a common error among veterans who become candidates.

"Vets need to get over the hurdle and talk about issues other than just vet issues or national security and defense," said Parker.

Patrick Murray is trying to keep this in mind.

He's been off for a decade commanding soldiers overseas and is now running for the 8^th congressional seat in Virginia. Rep. James Moran (D) has held the seat for the past 19 years.

Murray, a Republican, calls his campaign office in downtown Alexandria his "bunker" with only a hint of snark. His campaign pamphlets dually feature the standard Crest-endorsed headshot and a picture taken in Baghdad during the 2007 surge.

Murray recently gained the endorsements of Iraq Veterans for Congress, a grass-roots political organization for military veterans who are Republican candidates, and Combat Veterans for Congress, a PAC that supports the election of fiscally conservative veterans to Congress.

It's been a tough transition, though, as politics and the military can make for strange bedfellows.

"In the military, we use terms like honor and duty and look at ourselves in the mirror every morning and say, 'You are what you say and you say what you are,' " Murray reflected. "That's not always the case with politics."

"Iraq and Afghanistan have fallen to the back pages," said Ashwin Madia, who unsuccessfully ran for Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District with an endorsement from the PAC Vote Vets and now serves on its board. "We're working to change that drop-off."

Vote Vets, founded in 2006 by Iraq war veterans, works to get veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan elected to public office.

Patrick Murphy, endorsed by Vote Vets, was the first Iraq war veteran elected to Congress in Pennsylvania. The Democrat introduced the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007, with then Sen. Barack Obama, and was active in the passing of the 21st Century GI Bill.

"It's critical we have members of Congress who've walked in combat boots," he said. "People who know what's it like to serve in a 138-degree heat in the middle of Baghdad, people who truly know the cost of war."

Lynn also argues that veterans are also uniquely positioned to combat the polarization in Congress.

"Since basic training, you're taught to put aside your differences and do what's best for the country," said Lynn. "That's what we need in our elected officials, because the enemy's on the other side of the battlefield, not the aisle."

Sowers, who recently wrapped up his "Boots on the Ground" initiative – a 28-day "deployment" around his predominantly Republican district, where he talked to voters and worked different jobs – says that sentiment is easily forgotten.

"My buddies in the military ask me how this is going," he laughed. "I say no one's shooting at me, but they're still trying to kill me."

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