Our president's political handlers want to compare the young Lt. George W. Bush to a man like Sgt. Elijah Wong of Mesa, the first Arizona National Guardsman to die in Iraq. That would be a mistake.

I was in the room at the Guard headquarters in Phoenix last week when Sgt. Wong's sister, Helga, spoke of her brother. For anyone to compare the Elijah Wong of 2004 to the George Bush of 1972 would be a disservice to Wong and an embarrassment to Bush. At least if we are to believe Secretary of State Colin Powell. I'll get to him in a minute.

"My brother gave his life for his country," Helga Wong said. "He willingly went to Iraq. He believed that he could save the world, and in many ways, he did."

Sgt. Wong was a member of the 363rd Explosive Ordnance Company. It is their job to remove and destroy the unexploded rockets, bombs and other devices that litter the Iraqi war zone. Sgt. Wong died when some of the material he was transporting detonated.

"I cannot imagine how many countless lives were saved by the (explosives) he had processed already," Helga said.

In civilian life, Sgt. Wong worked for the Maricopa County Probation Department. He sister said that this, too, was part of his plan to save the world. He tried to help the former inmates under his supervision work their way back into society. He believed in his country, she said, with all its pros and cons.

Then she added, "He gave his life fighting the cons and realizing the pros." Sgt. Wong was 42, married and the father of three children. He was one of roughly 175,000 Guard members and reservists now serving and dying overseas.

As the presidential campaign progresses, President Bush will be compared more and more to people like Sgt. Wong. Bush was in the Air National Guard in the early 1970s. Some people have criticized him for it. They've said that the National Guard and reserves were used in those days by the sons of the wealthy and privileged who were trying to avoid service in Vietnam.

I came of age in the 1970s, too, but at a time when no more 18-year-olds were being drafted. Still, I recall that none of the steelworkers' sons in my neighborhood - guys a little older than I - ever got into the Guard or reserves. Some of them tried. Instead, they were drafted, and they went. It's what our fathers did. It's what we were taught.

This is a different time and a different war. Now the Guard and reserves are made up of people like Sgt. Wong. Regular people. Ordinary patriots. The supporters of President Bush say that anyone who criticizes the president for having been in the Guard back in '72 is also disparaging the men and women now serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

As I said, I am not qualified to make such comparisons. I'll leave such a thing to someone whose integrity and patriotism cannot be impugned and who also happens to be a prominent Republican: Secretary of State Powell. In 1995, Powell, who had then retired as an Army general, released an autobiography called My American Journey. In it, he discussed how the Guard and reserves were used in the Vietnam era and how he felt about it.

The passage reads: "I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war. The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live - were an anti-democratic disgrace. I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country."

I don't question President Bush's allegiance. But I wouldn't compare the 1972 version of Bush to the late Sgt. Wong. I have heard Wong's sister speak. She knew her brother as a friend, as a confidant, as a hero. And from what I heard, while George W. Bush of 2004 may be qualified and re-electable as president, he is no Sgt. Elijah Wong.