LEWISTON – One served in Vietnam and shared a room in Hanoi with Sen. John McCain. One led the CIA team in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and one served in Iraq during one of the bloodiest periods of the war.

The three veterans came to Lewiston in support of McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.

Leo Thorsness, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, said McCain “passed the test of any challenge critical to leadership” during the years he spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“(McCain’s) maturity, judgment and experience will never willy-nilly get us in a war that’s a mistake, but at the same time will never let our liberty be in danger,” Thorsness said.

The men came to the Republican campaign office on Lisbon Street as part of the McCain campaign’s efforts to increase the profile of its Maine campaign.

Gary Bernsten, a retired CIA officer, and Erik Swabb, who served in Iraq as a Marine infantry officer, joined Thorsness in campaign stops in Portland and Lewiston before heading to Bangor.

While Thorsness spoke of McCain personally, Bernsten and Swabb spoke to McCain’s policy and leadership, particularly his support of the troop surge in Iraq, now seen as a critical component of recent success in the country.

“I was in Afghanistan before, during and after the war began,” Bernsten said. “Had we lost in Iraq, it would have made Afghanistan worse. Iraq became the center of terrorism. The supposition that concentration on Iraq cost us success in Afghanistan is false. There’s been increased violence (in Afghanistan), but we are not going to lose.”

Afghanistan has become increasingly more dangerous than Iraq in recent months. Even though there are five times the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, more than twice as many Americans have died in Afghanistan than in Iraq since May, according to military reports.

Adam Cote, a veteran who served in Bosnia and Iraq, is chairman of Maine Veterans for Obama and a former 1st Congressional District candidate. He said Obama has shown the best leadership when it comes to war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“(Obama’s) been calling for a more of an on-the-ground presence in Afghanistan,” said Cote, a Democrat. “What we are not seeing from McCain, and this is the most critical issue with Iraq, is an exit strategy and how we can safely re-deploy our troops so that we will not have to go back there again.”

Swabb, a veteran of the Iraq war speaking on behalf of McCain, said “there was no good strategy” when he served in the region before the troop surge.

“When I was in Iraq, the situation was incredibly violent,” he said. “We didn’t have a good strategy, we didn’t know what to do. There was only one candidate willing to put his campaign on the line and that meant a lot to military people. Because of John McCain, we got more troops.”