CHARLOTTE -- A former prisoner of war who served with presidential candidate John McCain made his pitch on Tuesday for other North Carolina veterans to support the Arizona senator’s campaign.

"There is no candidate so prepared to be our commander in chief,” said Col. Quincy Collins of McCain. The two spent more than a year together in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

“You don’t want a president who is untested,” said Collins.

In front of an audience mainly filled with veterans, Collins said McCain’s toughness and brashness against the enemy boosted the morale of their fellow prisoners. "There were a lot who just said, ‘What can I do? I think I'll sort of just wait here for time to take care everything.’ John was out there on the front."

Collins’ pitch comes at a time where McCain and presidential candidate Barack Obama are sparring over when to pull combat troops out of Iraq. The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate is in visiting the Middle East region this week.

"My view based on the advice of military experts is that we can re-deploy safely in 16 months, so that our combat brigades are out of Iraq in 2010,” said Obama.

Argues McCain, "The fact is we have made progress and we have succeeded, and we will be coming home my friends, our troops will be withdrawing, but they'll be coming home in honor and victory, they will not be coming home in defeat."

According to a recent ABC/Washington Post poll, when asked if he would make a good commander in chief, 72 percent of people responded yes for McCain. When asked the same question about Obama, 48 percent answered yes.