Reserves' deployment may affect vote

WASHINGTON — President Bush has come under fire recently over questions about his Vietnam War service, but the repeated deployments of National Guard and Reserve troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan may have a bigger effect on the outcome of November's presidential contest.

Those deployments have put a strain on Guard and Reserve troops, their families and their employers. And the campaign of Democratic nominee John Kerry is hoping that strain will get some of the normally Republican-leaning military voters to consider backing the Massachusetts senator.

Both Bush and Kerry made direct appeals to Guard troops and their families last week, signaling the political sensitivity of the issue in the final two months of the close campaign.

In a speech Thursday before the National Guard Association in Las Vegas, Kerry accused the president of using the Guard to cover for an overstretched military and of shortchanging Guard soldiers with outdated equipment and poor support back home.

'Right now members of the Guard who are serving overseas are losing paychecks here at home," Kerry said. "Some are passed over for promotions and returning to find that jobs that they once held are gone. I think that's wrong. And we have to change it with a different policy about how we create jobs and protect people who serve their country."

Kerry campaign officials note many of the Guard and Reserve troops being called to Iraq are police officers, fire fighters and other first responders needed at home in the event of a terrorist attack.

Bush and his campaign leaders recognize the potential threat of having unhappy service members and constantly laud their role in the war on terrorism.

"I know this time of call-ups and alerts and mobilizations and deployments has been difficult for Guard members and their families and employers," Bush said, in a speech Tuesday to the same gathering of the National Guard Association. Bush's speech was much better received than Kerry's, with the president interrupted by standing ovations a number of times.

"You've taken the battle to our enemies abroad. The National Guard has played a critical role in every aspect of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. More than 185,000 Guard members have been called to serve on every front in the war on terror," Bush said.