OLD TOWN – Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s days as a solider in Vietnam have helped define the candidate like few before him, analysts say.

To his supporters, he is a bona fide war hero and a principled anti-war advocate. To his opponents, he is a political opportunist and wartime apologist.

Those challenges to Kerry’s wartime accomplishments by the Republican-backed group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have brought a counteroffensive to Maine Thursday featuring one of Kerry’s comrades in arms.

Wade Sanders, who, like Kerry, skippered a swift boat in Vietnam, didn’t reserve his ire for the anti-Kerry veterans group, which he calls “Swift Boat Veterans for Bush.”

Most of the group’s claims have been contradicted by military records and by its members’ earlier statements.

Sanders also blasted a Bush administration that, despite being comprised of “chicken hawks,” he said, dared to question the leadership credentials of Kerry, who won three Purple Hearts as well as a Bronze Star and Silver Star.

“To wrap yourself in the flag, which you never thought was a priority to serve, is the ultimate in hypocrisy,” Sanders said of the Bush campaign’s emphasis on its wartime record. “I have never seen such mealy-mouthed liars, mealy-mouthed cowards in my entire life.

“I wouldn’t walk into an ice cream parlor with these guys,” he continued. “With John Kerry at my back, I’d go anywhere, anytime.”

Sanders made the comments during a morning meeting with a small group of veterans at the Old Town home of Dick Grenier, a Korean War veteran who spent 33 months as a prisoner of war.

Sanders’ trip to Old Town was preceded by a swing through New Hampshire on behalf of the Kerry campaign. Thursday afternoon, Sanders addressed a veterans’ group in Auburn.

The Kerry campaign’s courtship of veterans is unprecedented among Democratic presidential candidates in recent elections, said Jim Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine at Farmington.

“It’s more than just looking for support among veterans,” Melcher said, saying the emphasis on Kerry’s Vietnam service is meant to ease the minds of some Americans who might be wary about changing presidents amid a terrorist threat.

“It’s saying to voters that ‘I know it’s a time of crisis, but I’ve been in a crisis situation and this is how I handled it. You can turn the keys over to me and not worry,'” he said.

But, particularly for Democrats, emphasizing one’s wartime accomplishments can prove a delicate balance, he said.

This year, many Democrats, particularly the party’s delegates to the national convention, voiced strong opposition to the war in Iraq, an action that Kerry – a combat hero turned anti-war activist – voted to authorize.

While much has been made of Kerry’s wartime service, just as much attention has been paid to George W. Bush’s lack thereof. During Vietnam, Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard, specifically requesting not to be sent overseas.

Hib Theriault, a Maine chairman of Veterans for Bush, said wartime experience had less to do with leading the nation than the resolve epitomized by the current commander in chief.

“The integrity and credibility shown by that person by doing the things they say they are going to do is first and foremost,” said Theriault, who served two tours in Vietnam.

Particularly in recent history, military experience – even on the battlefield – has meant little in the race for the White House.

In 1972, Democrat George McGovern was a decorated bomber pilot in World War II. His Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, never saw a day of combat as a supply officer. Nixon won handily.

Jimmy Carter, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and senior officer on the country’s second nuclear submarine, lost by a wide margin in 1980 to Republican Ronald Reagan, who spent much of World War II producing and narrating Army training films.

Bill Clinton, whose efforts to avoid the Vietnam draft are well documented, easily defeated World War II veterans George H.W. Bush, a bomber pilot, and Bob Dole, who was seriously wounded as a member of a mountain brigade, in 1992 and 1996, respectively.