{"id":20749,"date":"2026-03-30T18:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T18:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/iran-war-makes-things-personal-for-veteran-candidates\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T18:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T18:02:11","slug":"iran-war-makes-things-personal-for-veteran-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/iran-war-makes-things-personal-for-veteran-candidates\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran war makes things personal for veteran candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began a month ago, the tragic potential reverberations of past conflicts echoed quickly for Virginia state Del. Dan Helmer, who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and is now running for Congress as a Democrat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2002, a president lied to the American people and sent my friends to die in a war of choice,\u201d he told Blue Light News in an interview, noting that next month marks the 22nd anniversary of his first friend\u2019s death in combat. \u201cAnd once again, President [Donald] Trump has circumvented the democratic process to launch a war of choice without strategic insight in Iran. \u2026 The consequences of reckless military intervention are pretty clear. And the challenges in enacting regime change to get a predictable outcome have defined my experience in the military.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Bouchard sees things differently. The Michigan Republican House candidate and Bronze Star recipient served in the Army and National Guard, including a counter-ISIS deployment in Iraq for most of 2025 \u2014 which encompassed the last Israel-Iran war. Bouchard thinks the current conflict is a necessary, limited mission against a regional menace that has endangered and targeted U.S. service members for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen peace through strength save my friends\u2019 lives, and that\u2019s what this is,\u201d he said. \u201cNo one wants to go to war less than somebody who\u2019s been to it. But we can\u2019t just put our heads in the sand and hope things don\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of military veterans running for Congress across the country, both Democrats and Republicans, have now adapted their campaign messaging to befit a nation at war. In a rapidly changing landscape \u2014 with ceasefire talks, military escalation and global energy crisis all on the table on any given day \u2014 candidates from each party have starkly opposed perspectives on the conflict. But for many of them, the costs and the imperatives of war feel deeply personal.<\/p>\n

New York Assemblymember Robert Smullen, who spent 24 years in the Marine Corps and is campaigning in an Upstate GOP House primary, has done multiple Strait of Hormuz transits and studied the enrichment process as a White House fellow at the Energy Department. Montana Democrat Matt Rains, who flew Black Hawks in South Korea and Iraq, is also a rancher watching crucial diesel costs rise. Zach Dembo, a former Navy JAG officer running as a Democrat in Kentucky, has been on two of the aircraft carriers now deployed to the Middle East.<\/p>\n

All of that intimate knowledge leads them to some pretty different conclusions.<\/p>\n

What they agree on: More than half a dozen Democratic and Republican veteran candidates who spoke with Blue Light News said they oppose the autocratic Iranian government and wouldn\u2019t be sorry to see it go.<\/p>\n

Beyond that \u2014 and respect for the troops \u2014 there\u2019s little consensus across the partisan divide.<\/p>\n

Democrats are fuming that Trump didn\u2019t make the case for war and get buy-in from the American public, Congress and foreign allies. They argue that the U.S. approach has lacked clear plans and strategic goals. And they deeply fear that what they see as Trump\u2019s recklessness will lead to another forever war, needlessly sacrificing soldiers\u2019 lives without achieving any big-picture goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see an endgame here, and it makes me really worried,\u201d Dembo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis idea that you can just briefly drop bombs on a nation \u2026 and they\u2019ll just like raise the white flag and beg for us to come put a new government in there, I mean, is asinine,\u201d Rains said.<\/p>\n

Many Democrats also see the war as a costly distraction from Americans\u2019 economic struggles. \u201cThe amount of money we are spending on this war and on this conflict right now, when we have so many issues here at home that are not being addressed \u2026 that\u2019s where the real disconnect is,\u201d said Jessica Killin, an Army veteran running in Colorado.<\/p>\n

GOP veterans say they oppose endless wars, too. But that\u2019s not how they see this one. Hewing closely to Trump\u2019s messaging, Republicans told Blue Light News that Iran has been the real belligerent for 47 years. They agree with their Democratic counterparts that the U.S. needs to have a clear plan and not let the conflict drag out for too long \u2014 but they have much greater trust in Trump to achieve those goals, principally stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand veterans\u2019 issues. I understand the cost of what they\u2019ve given, their families have given,\u201d said Oregon Republican Monique DeSpain, an Air Force veteran and JAG who\u2019s worked with veterans for 30 years. \u201cThat\u2019s why I feel strongly [about] swift removal of any threats to our country \u2026 Congress needs to understand national security: The cost of delay and inaction is irreversible.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen how voters during wartime will receive these and other veterans running for Congress, many of them in crowded primaries or swing districts. Those who spoke with Blue Light News said they think they\u2019re uniquely positioned to speak with authority: Democrats pitching their national security expertise to lay bare the war\u2019s flaws, and Republicans reassuring skittish voters about why the U.S. strikes can succeed and bolster American security.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in their shoes, and I actually know what they\u2019re doing and what they\u2019re facing, because I dealt with the same thing after September 11th,\u201d Smullen said of the troops currently being deployed. \u201cIt\u2019s a mission that needs to be done. It\u2019s about time that we did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like this content? Consider signing up for Blue Light News’s <\/i>Playbook PM newsletter<\/i><\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began a month ago, the tragic potential reverberations of past conflicts echoed quickly for Virginia state Del. Dan Helmer, who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and is now running for Congress as a Democrat. \u201cIn 2002, a president lied to the American people and sent my friends to die […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}