Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega said Republican incumbent John Cornyn has not voted to take care of U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families. (image courtesy of www.statesman.com)

AUSTIN – The Bush administration and congressional Republicans haven't equipped the troops properly nor built a needed veteran's hospital in South Texas, Mr. Noriega said, echoing Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Mr. Noriega, though, saved his toughest criticism for Mr. Cornyn – who, while his father was an Air Force doctor, didn't serve in the military himself.

"I certainly ... understand what veterans and their families go through," said Mr. Noriega, a Texas Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who has served in Afghanistan and on the Texas-Mexico border. "I have a very different perspective of what that means – taking care of my soldiers – that John Cornyn can never understand."

Jon Soltz of the veteran's group VoteVets.org joined Mr. Noriega on a conference call with reporters. Mr. Soltz blasted Mr. Cornyn as "antitroop" and "antiveteran," citing the senator's vote last year against a proposal to require that troops be given as much time at home as they had spent overseas before being redeployed.

Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said the bill, narrowly blocked from coming to the Senate floor, was "a thinly veiled withdrawal plan." It would have prevented the Pentagon from conducting last year's troop surge in Iraq, he said.

The Cornyn spokesman ticked off more than two dozen votes he said showed the senator's support for troops and veterans. The Noriega camp countered with a list of eight Cornyn votes it criticized, including one it cast as a vote "against better body armor for our troops."

Mr. McLaughlin replied, "There has never been a request from the Department of Defense that we have voted against. Every single member of the U.S. Senate fully supports body armor for our troops and excellent health care for our veterans, and Rick Noriega knows it. Of all people, he should know better than to use our veterans and men and women in uniform as campaign pawns in his attempt for a political promotion."

Mr. Noriega, a five-term Texas House member from Houston, released records of his 24 years in the National Guard, which he said followed 2 ½ years as an Army reservist. They show he was praised repeatedly in annual evaluations.

Earlier this month, state GOP political director Hans Klingler wrote Mr. Noriega and other Democrats running in Tuesday's U.S. Senate primary, asking them to sign an authorization to release to him their military records. Mr. Noriega instead posted them on his campaign Web site, saying he suspected a GOP effort at dirty tricks.

Mr. Noriega said retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, warned him that the GOP would imitate a tactic of former Bush White House political strategist Karl Rove by trying to turn a political strength, his military service, and into a negative.