DNC: Winding path leads to a handshake

DENVER • While 75,000 people were lining up to see Barack Obama's acceptance speech Thursday, John Volkmar was preparing for a much more personal introduction.

The former Army captain who'd been stationed at Fort Carson for three years had been selected from thousands as one of nine Obama supporters chosen in an essay contest to meet the candidate. "I was a little shocked when they told me I'd been chosen," he said Thursday at Denver's Westin Hotel as he waited for a van to take him to the meeting at Invesco Field at Mile High.

Obama has stressed reaching out to all voters, and the road that led Volkmar to supporting Obama is one the campaign clearly wanted to highlight when it picked his 100-word essay sent by e-mail a few months ago.

Before leaving the Army in 2007, Volkmar commanded an elite team of the 10th Special Forces Group. He did two tours in Iraq training Iraqi commandos and other soldiers to take over the mission of keeping the peace. He voted for President Bush twice.

"I've always been fiscally conservative and culturally liberal," he said. He went to the conservative Citadel military academy, and both his parents are Republicans.

But, he said, as he spent more time in Iraq, he began to question what he was doing. He witnessed graft and corruption, but not much progress.

"I once literally saw an Iraqi general with a suitcase of money," he said. "Everyone was skimming off the top."

And, he said, he began to question the justifications for the United States military being in Iraq.

"More and more, the only thing that seemed to make sense was that it was about oil," he said. "Iraq really opened my eyes to the link between our foreign policy and our energy policy."

He decided if he was going to help America find lasting peace, it wouldn't be in the Special Forces, it would be in the renewable energy industry. So he got out of the Army and is pursuing a business degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he lives today.

"Whatever other benefits there are to reducing our use of fossil fuels, it's all about providing security for our nation," he said.

That led him to Obama.

He had been a big fan of John McCain in the 2000 election and as a senator, but thought the candidate's message, particularly on economics and energy, was too similar to Bush's policies.

"I also was really attracted by (Obama's) post-partisan message. I'm tired of the bickering," he said.

So he sent in a short e-mail essay saying that his experience in Iraq made him realize Obama's embrace of alternative energy was the way to go.

"It wasn't easy. It was a really big deal for my family. Telling my dad I was voting for a Democrat," he said, "would be like telling him I'm gay."

When the news came out, Volkmar's phone buzzed with angry messages from guys he had fought with in Iraq.

Before getting into the van that would take him and the other essay winner to Invesco, Volkmar said he wanted to ask Obama about veterans care and how Obama plans to pay for Social Security.

"But most of all, I want to ask him about forming a Manhattan Project for green energy. I see that as our most important priority," Volkmar said.

He never got a chance to ask his questions. The group of essay winners waited. Obama was running late. They were supposed to have a sit-down with him, but instead had to settle for a few handshakes and photos backstage moments before Obama took the podium to roaring applause. Obama laid out what his candidacy would look like, and challenged the crowd to do their part to make America a better place.

The stadium shook with chants of "Yes we can!"

The essay winners got front-row seats, and in a way, Obama's speech touched on many of Volkmar's questions.

"It was a great speech," said Volkmar. "We were so close we could read it off the teleprompters."