What Pete Buttigieg lacks in political experience is now on the backburner behind his military service as a intelligence officer in Afghanistan – albeit brief – according to Politico.

"Pete is the only leading candidate who has served – he has seen the true cost of war up close," said Jon Soltz, president of VoteVets, a progressive veterans group that has endorsed Buttigieg. "The next president is going to have to undo an unbelievable amount of damage Donald Trump has done, and I think Pete's military background is going to pull people toward Pete in this moment, not away."

Critics point not only to former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Buttigieg's lack of exposure to Washington, D.C., but also his brief seven months in Afghanistan as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, but it did not preclude him from weighing in on the Trump administration's strike to remove an Iranian commander.

"When I was an intelligence officer, I was trained to ask tough questions so that they could be thought through before a decision," Buttigieg told a Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, town hall Saturday night, per Politico. "We have seen no evidence presented that that took place here."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the national polling leader, might trail Buttigieg in Iowa polls, but he trumps the youngest Democratic primary candidate in Washington and foreign-policy experience.

"The fact that Mayor Pete is the only top tier candidate who has served creates trust and a clear sense of his long-held values, but there's no doubt that candidates like the senators have more experience and relationships on the world stage to tap on day one," Democratic consultant Meredith Kelly, formerly of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's campaign, told Politico.