Veterans group will campaign against McCain

One base of Sen. John McCain's staunchest supporters might be eroding. A group of 15 military veterans on Tuesday held the first meeting of the Pittsburgh unit of the AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council at the Sheraton Hotel Station Square. The first meeting of the council's Pennsylvania chapter took place on Monday in Bethlehem.

"We need to educate our fellow veterans that McCain has turned his back on us," said John Vento, 85, who manned anti-aircraft guns in the Pacific during World War II.

The vets and union members joined Vento, director of political education for the Allegheny County Labor Council, in announcing their intention to show voters the GOP's presumptive presidential candidate has not lived up to his image as a defender of veterans.

They hope to help elect Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive nominee. But Paul Lindsay, the Pennsylvania and Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign , said: "Veterans and our military men and women have always supported John McCain because he has always, and will always, support them."

"We honor Sen. McCain as a POW and a war hero, but he has a dismal record of taking care of vets," said Mark Ayers, the council's national chair and the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department president. Ayers, 59, flew in C-130s over Vietnam as a Navy engineer from 1967-72.

The council published a flier that listed, among other things, McCain's opposition to the recently passed GI Bill and his votes against increased money for veterans health care each year from 2004-07.

Since the council's creation last month in Dayton, Ohio, about 60,000 people have joined, Ayers said. Council chapters exist in seven states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virgina, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina and Colorado. Ayers said the council hopes to establish chapters in the coming weeks in Michigan, Virginia, New Hampshire and Oregon.