2026年3月29日 美国东部时间上午6:00 / CNN
作者：爱德华-艾萨克·多韦雷
发布时间：2026年3月29日 美国东部时间上午6:00
弗朗西斯·钟/政治报/美联社/资料图
圣安东尼奥——
这位比鲁本·加列戈晚几分钟抵达萨姆·休斯顿堡附近一家抹茶店的老兵，跟在加列戈身后，正纠结该坐在哪里。
加列戈停下讲话，转过身来。他努力用微笑掩饰语气中的不耐烦，指着自己身旁说道：“往那边挪一挪。”
这名男子很快在桌边和其他人挤了个位置。他和其他参会者此行是为了讨论他们在退伍军人事务部就医遇到的困难，以及对军队被政治化的担忧。加列戈渴望倾听他们的故事——只要没人在他身后虎视眈眈。
“这让我很紧张，”他话音刚落，众人纷纷心领神会地点点头。
加列戈谈起了自己的经历：他认识的23名战友在行动中阵亡；他遭遇过两次简易爆炸装置袭击，其中一次就在他身后的车队里炸死了他最好的朋友；最初一名案件工作人员认为他看起来状态不错、事业有成，驳回了他的创伤后应激障碍诊断；回国后，他只想“过回该死的普通生活”，却始终被无法回到参战前的自己的念头折磨；他至今仍会定期接到昔日战友的电话，安抚他们不要自杀。
大多时候，他都在倾听他人的故事： prospective雇主以不符合资质为由冷酷拒绝他们的求职；他们重返校园试图重启人生，却迟迟未能如愿；由于退伍军人事务部预算削减，心理治疗只能远程进行，咨询师在共享诊室里开展工作。
在场的退伍军人忧心忡忡，他们表示，越来越频繁地看到现役军人公开表明政治立场，还有国防部长皮特·赫格塞特——此人也曾在伊拉克和阿富汗服役——曾就伊朗问题坚称“这不是那些（伊拉克、阿富汗式的）战争”。
几代民主党全国委员会成员都对20年前伊拉克战争战前造势和当时的授权使用武力投票的政治幽灵耿耿于怀，从约翰·克里那句著名的“我其实先投了870亿美元支持，后来又投了反对票”的辩解，到希拉里·克林顿在2008年和2016年竞选期间因授权动武的“赞成”票遭到攻击。
如今，许多着眼2028年大选的民主党人在这场冲突问题上小心翼翼，包括如何处理唐纳德·特朗普总统要求国会拨款2000亿美元用于他发动的战争。他们夹在中间：一边是共和党人 ready to say they’re squishes who won’t support the troops（Ready翻译为“会指责他们是不敢支持军队的软蛋”更符合语境），另一边是民主党选民会怒斥他们是“叛徒”并怒不可遏。
加列戈以海军陆战队身份赴伊拉克服役时年仅24岁。萦绕在他心头的不是政治幽灵。当华盛顿其他人都在为拨款之战做准备时，这位亚利桑那州新晋参议员表示，现在是时候改变关于“支持军队”真正含义的讨论了。
“对退伍军人来说，最爱国的事，”当晚他在由亲民主党组织“投票支持退伍军人”举办的有300人参加的退伍军人市政厅活动上说道，“就是不要把我们派去愚蠢的战争。”
加列戈竞选亚利桑那州参议员团队
不掩饰全国性政治抱负
加列戈有资格谈论他与民主党全国领导层的不同看法。2024年，他在摇摆州以2.5个百分点的优势艰难赢得参议院席位，而同一场选举中特朗普以5.5个百分点击败了卡玛拉·哈里斯。
“我认为华盛顿方面知道现在局势有些不对劲，”市政厅活动后台，他反戴着黑色海军陆战队军帽说道，“但我觉得民主党人还没搞清楚该如何回应人们当下的真实感受。”
自2024年大选次日起，他就一直在推动这一主张。他谈到民主党需要做出哪些改变才能吸引拉美裔选民。他还到访了不少政治存在感很强的州。
他和顾问们正在评估，2028年选民是否会接纳这位46岁的新晋参议员——他们承认他个子不高，在竞选活动中略显平淡，在重大政策问题上又太爱即兴发挥，这让他的团队成员颇为不安。
私下向CNN表达不满的批评者称，他渴望跻身总统竞选对话，这种野心让他同时试图讨好太多阵营，最终难免会被其中一些扎到。他曾发帖称，是以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡而非特朗普决定发动战争。他最近还表示，自己对拜登政府期间前司法部长梅里克·加兰没有起诉更多2021年1月6日国会山骚乱参与者感到无比愤怒，加兰的肖像永远不该挂在司法部大楼里。
加列戈最初发起总统竞选相关讨论时，并未料到会扯上伊朗战争。如今，他认为这场地缘政治事件印证了他一直以来的主张：要以贴近工人阶级日常生活的方式与他们沟通。他引用母亲常说的西班牙语短语“Cuando te conviene”（“当对你有利的时候”），形容本届政府优先考虑军事打击而非医疗保健或食品券。
加列戈认为，有关伊朗的语义之争，只有华盛顿才会在意。
“我的‘这是不是战争’的通用标准是，如果有人朝你‘突突突’，你也‘突突突’回去，那就是战争，”他用手指比出《星球大战》里的激光枪手势，配合“突突突”的音效强调道，“就这么简单。”
加列戈表示，这些谈话已经让他打消了犹豫，决定支持格雷厄姆·普拉特纳——另一位曾在伊拉克服役的海军陆战队老兵，如今在缅因州挑战参议院民主党领导层看好的提名候选人。
“我需要知道有人能理解这一切背后的真正危险，”加列戈解释普拉特纳时说道，后者也对这场战争表达了类似的反对立场，“我需要有人在避免我们卷入愚蠢战争这件事上，和我一样态度坚决。”
前纽约国会议员马克斯·罗斯如今是“投票支持退伍军人”组织的顾问，该组织主办了这场市政厅活动。他称加列戈是对抗那位承诺解决民生问题、结束永无休止的战争，却让选民“因被欺骗而愤怒、因本届政府对民生问题无所作为而恐惧”的总统的“核心信使”。
“鲁本·加列戈谈及国会必须拥有宣战权，是因为鲁本·加列戈比国会中任何人都更了解战争的代价，”罗斯说道，他曾在阿富汗服役期间受伤，获颁铜星勋章和紫心勋章。
“一遍又一遍”
上周日刚吃完晚餐，加列戈就看到南卡罗来纳州参议员林赛·格雷厄姆在福克斯新闻上表示，美国可以入侵伊朗关键的石油设施哈尔克岛，因为“我们打过硫磺岛，也能打这里——我永远把赌注压在海军陆战队身上”。
当时已经喝了两杯波本威士忌的加列戈克制住了回应格雷厄姆的冲动。格雷厄姆曾在空军和预备役服役三十年，尤以法官 Advocate General Corps（军法署）律师身份闻名。加列戈当时想发帖说：“只有空军军法署的军官才会真的相信这种话。”
加列戈谨慎地表示，他并非贬低任何人的服役经历，他说在共和党和民主党人中，参战过的退伍军人政客和没有参战经历的政客之间存在区别。格雷厄姆的发言人未回复置评请求。
“这真的惹恼了我，因为这太轻率了。当然，我了解硫磺岛战役的历史，我们牺牲了多少人，多少人受伤——顺便说一句，还有多少日本平民丧生，”市政厅活动结束后，加列戈说道。
加列戈竞选亚利桑那州参议员团队
“这告诉我，你根本没考虑过这些男女军人——年轻的男女士兵——将要面临什么，战争有多危险，对这些家庭的影响，以及他们将要终生承担的长期后果。”
其中一个牺牲者的家属就坐在市政厅的观众席中。一名女性站起来说，她的兄弟是“金星家庭”成员（指阵亡军人家属），她想知道美国怎么可能又陷入一场没有尽头的战争。
回答前，加列戈先问了她兄弟的阵亡地点——2003年12月28日，伊拉克——然后走下去拥抱了她，才开始作答。
“我们以为早就该吸取教训了。越南战争后我们本该吸取教训，却没有。伊拉克和阿富汗战争后我们本该吸取教训，还是没有，”加列戈说道，“再说一次，‘骨 spur总统’（指特朗普，调侃他因足底筋膜炎免服兵役，此处用“骨马刺总统”更贴合原文戏谑语气）觉得自己他妈的是尤利西斯·格兰特，正试图把我们的男女军人派往另一场战争，还祈祷一切顺利。”
加列戈在采访中表示，正是这类时刻，让他不想听到特朗普、格雷厄姆或任何民主党同僚说，反对这场战争就是不支持军队。
“他们就是这么说的，”加列戈说道，“然后我们的士兵就会一批又一批地死去。”
With an Iran funding vote looming, Ruben Gallego urges Democrats to rethink how to support the troops
2026-03-29 06:00 AM ET / CNN
By Edward-Isaac Dovere
PUBLISHED Mar 29, 2026, 6:00 AM ET
Sen. Ruben Gallego speaks during during a press conference at the US Capitol on February 26, 2026.
Francis Chung/Politico/AP/File
San Antonio—
The veteran who arrived a few minutes late to the matcha shop down the street from Fort Sam Houston hovered behind Ruben Gallego, trying to figure out where to sit.
Gallego stopped talking and turned around. With an edge in his voice that he tried to cover with a smile, Gallego pointed to his side and said, “Move that way.”
Quickly, the man found a spot at the table with the others. He and other attendees were there to discuss their struggles getting care from Veterans Affairs and their worries about the military getting politicized. Gallego was eager to hear them — as long as he didn’t feel like anyone was looming behind him.
“Makes me nervous,” he said to knowing nods.
Gallego talked about his own experiences, the 23 people he knew killed in action, the two improvised explosive device hits, including the one that killed his best friend right behind him in the convoy. The way he was initially waved away from a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis by a case worker who said he seemed fine and successful. How when he’d come back, all he wanted to do was “have a normal damn life,” how he was always gnawed by not being able to get back to the person he was before going to war. The calls he still gets regularly from men he served with, talking them out of suicide.
Mostly, he listened to others’ stories: the maddening rejections from prospective employers who said they didn’t have the right experience, going back to college in the hopes of resets that still haven’t come, therapy sessions that, because of VA cuts, have to be done remotely with the professionals in shared rooms.
The veterans in the room worried, they said, about how often they were seeing others on active duty starting to openly display their political affiliations, and about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who also served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has insisted about Iran, “This is not those wars.”
Generations of national Democrats are haunted by the political ghosts of the run-up to the Iraq War 20 years ago and the vote then to authorize use of force, from John Kerry’s famous “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” parse to Hillary Clinton being attacked for her “yes” vote to authorize force through her 2008 and 2016 runs.
Now many Democrats eyeing 2028 are treading carefully when it comes to the conflict, including over how to handle a potential vote over the $200 billion President Donald Trump wants from Congress to fund the war he launched. They’re caught between Republicans ready to say they’re squishes who won’t support the troops and a Democratic base ready to rage against those they’ll say are sellouts.
Gallego was 24 when he deployed as a Marine to Iraq. The ghosts he’s haunted by aren’t political. And as others in Washington gear up for the funding fight, the junior Arizona senator says now’s the time to change the conversation about what it really means to support the troops.
“The most patriotic thing you could do for veterans,” he said later that evening at a 300-person veterans town hall organized by the Democratic-leaning group VoteVets, “is to not send us to stupid wars.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego was 24 when he deployed as a Marine to Iraq.
Gallego for Arizona
Not hiding national ambitions
Gallego has standing to talk about what he sees differently from national Democrats. He won a hard-fought Senate race in 2024 by 2.5 points on the same swing-state ballot where Trump beat Kamala Harris by 5.5 points.
“I think Washington knows that there’s something going on right now,” he said backstage at the town hall, his black Marines cap turned backward, “but I don’t think Democrats have figured out is how to talk to what people are feeling right now.”
He’s been leaning into that since the day after the 2024 election. He’s talked about what Democrats need to change to appeal to Latinos. And he’s been to quite a few politically conspicuous states.
He and his advisers are gauging whether there would be an appetite in 2028 for a 46-year-old freshman senator whom they acknowledge is a little short, a little underwhelming on the stump, a little too prone to winging it on big policy questions to keep his staff comfortable.
His ambition to be part of the presidential conversation, unimpressed critics tell CNN privately, has him trying to thread so many needles at once that eventually he’s going to get pricked by at least a few of them. He’s posted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than Trump decided to go to war. And he recently said he’s so disgusted with former Attorney General Merrick Garland not prosecuting more January 6, 2021, rioters during President Joe Biden’s administration that his portrait should never be hung at the Justice Department.
Gallego wasn’t expecting to be talking about a war in Iran when he started stirring presidential chatter. Now, he sees a geopolitical exclamation mark on what he’s been saying about talking to the working class in ways that matter in their daily lives. A Spanish phrase from his mother, “Cuando te conviene” (“when it suits you”), he says, describes an administration that he argues prioritizes military strikes over health care or food stamps.
The only place semantics about Iran matters, Gallego argues, is Washington.
“My general rule of, ‘Is it a war or not?’ is, if someone’s going ‘pew-pew’ to you and you’re going ‘pew-pew’ back, that’s a war,” he said, making finger guns with the “Star Wars”-style sound effects for emphasis. “That’s just very simple.”
Already those conversations, Gallego said, led him to get over his hesitation to endorse Graham Platner, another Marine veteran who served in Iraq now running against Senate Democratic leaders’ preferred pick for the nomination in Maine.
“I need to know someone understands the real danger of all of this,” Gallego explained of Platner, who has expressed similar pushback to the war. “I need someone to actually have the same intensity that I have when it comes to keeping us out of stupid wars.”
Max Rose, a former New York congressman who now serves as an adviser to the group VoteVets, which hosted the town hall, called Gallego “an essential messenger” against a president who promised to address affordability and end forever wars, leaving voters “angry because they were lied to and scared because this administration is doing nothing to address affordability.”
“When Ruben Gallego talks about the necessity for Congress to be the one to declares war, he is saying that because Ruben Gallego more so than anyone on that body understands the costs of war,” said Rose, who was wounded while serving in Afghanistan and awarded both a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
‘Over and over again’
Gallego had just finished dinner last Sunday when he saw South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Fox News that the US could invade the key Iranian energy depot of Kharg Island because “We did Iwo Jima, we can do this — my money’s always on the Marines.”
Two bourbons in, Gallego stopped himself from responding to Graham, who served for three decades in the Air Force and the reserves, notably as a lawyer in the judge advocate general corps. What Gallego said he wanted to post was, “Only an Air Force JAG officer would actually believe that.”
Careful to note he’s not denigrating anyone’s service, Gallego said there’s a difference between politicians who are veterans who saw combat and those who didn’t, among both Republicans and Democrats. A Graham spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
“It really did piss me off, just because it’s so flippant. Of course, I know the history of Iwo Jima and how many men we lost, how many were injured—and also how many Japanese civilians were killed, too, by the way,” Gallego said after the town hall.
Sen. Ruben Gallego knew 23 people killed in action from his time as a US Marine.
Gallego for Arizona
“It tells me that you really have no thought about what these men and women — young men and women — are going to have to do, how dangerous it is, the consequences to these families, and the long-term consequences they are going to deal with.”
One of those families was sitting in the audience of the town hall, as a woman stood to say her brother was a Gold Star recipient and wanted to know how America could possibly be in another open-ended war.
Before answering, Gallego stopped to ask where her brother was killed — Iraq, December 28, 2003 — then walked down to hug her before answering.
“We thought we’d have learned. We should have learned after the Vietnam War. We didn’t. We should have learned after what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. We didn’t,” Gallego said. “And again, President Bone Spurs Thinks he’s fricking (Ulysses) Grant and he’s trying to send our men and women to another war and hoping and praying that things go well.”
Moments like that are why, Gallego said in the interview, he doesn’t want to hear from Trump, Graham or any of his Democratic colleagues that standing up to this war isn’t supporting the troops.
“They say that,” Gallego said. “And then more and more of our troops die over and over again.”
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