It was November in Iowa, and Pete Buttigieg was having a moment, rising in polls and talking—not quite obliquely—about his military service. “I don’t have to throw myself a military parade to see what a convoy looks like,” the 38-year-old said in his marquee speech at the Des Moines party fundraiser late last year, “because I was driving one around Afghanistan right about the time this president was taping season seven of The Celebrity Apprentice.”

Cathartic barbs at Donald Trump aside, Buttigieg’s military career—he served eight years as a Navy Reserve intelligence officer, including about six months on active duty in Afghanistan—has long played a powerful role in boosting his presidential aspirations. In speeches, debates, policy plans, and campaign stops, Buttigieg suggests that among all the Democratic primary candidates, he best understands the complexities of conflict, the urgent need for peace, and the plight of veterans. In early January, amid escalating tensions with Iran and stagnant poll numbers, The New York Times reported that Mayor Pete would make his military service even more central to his pitch.

Some signs of the pivot were subtle, like Buttigieg changing his Twitter bio to lead with “Afghanistan veteran.” The navigation-menu icon on Buttigieg’s campaign website is an image of his Navy rank. Iowa campaign volunteers were given “challenge coins,” collectible memorabilia popular among certain kinds of military commanders and enthusiasts, to leave at the doors of potential recruits. The campaign named its Iowa blitz “Phase 3,” a get-out-the-vote effort that sounded more like a bust-down-the-door mission. (In military parlance, a “Phase III Operation” is one in which you finally “dominate” the enemy.)

The latest signifier of Buttigieg’s military background came in his caucus-night speech and tweets in Iowa on Monday, when he prematurely declared mission accomplished: “We are going on to New Hampshire victorious,” he said, in the absence of evidence to support the claim. (The Associated Press had still not declared a winner by late Monday.)

Should he secure the Democratic nomination and defeat Trump, Buttigieg would become the party’s first veteran to inhabit the Oval Office since Jimmy Carter, a Naval Academy graduate and former submarine officer. Twenty-six of America’s 45 presidents served in the military. In his quest to become the twenty-seventh, Buttigieg is betting that his experience “outside the wire” and his keen understanding of dynamics in the Middle East will convince voters he’s right for the job of commander in chief.