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''It gives a candidate an unfair disadvantage because you're just kind of campaigning in a vacuum, but your opponent is draped in this ...,'' Dejak said, without finishing his sentence. ''He's untouchable, almost.''

Many veterans cite the military as essentially their only qualification for office.

''After you've been in combat and you survived it, you've got this real energized sense that, 'I can accomplish anything,' and you view your country differently,'' said Ohio Democrat Paul Hackett, among the notable anti-war candidates in 2006.

Hackett dropped out of a U.S. Senate race that year when Congressman Sherrod Brown, a star among Ohio Democrats, decided to run. But he gained attention a year earlier for nearly beating Cincinnati-area Congresswoman Jean Schmidt with an outspoken anti-war campaign in a heavily Republican district.

J. Ashwin Madia, a former Marine running in Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District, is among anti-war veterans whom Hackett has endorsed this year. He's also part of VoteVets.org, a counterpart to Iraq Vets for Congress that has created Internet ads for anti-war veterans seeking office.

Madia, 29, who opposed the U.S. entry into Iraq and now favors orderly withdrawal, said the war remains a focus of his campaign.

''Certainly there are other issues weighing on people's minds -- the economy, health care, education -- but the war is central to the campaign because people realize it's all related,'' he said.

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