SwiftVets.com

[ASPB]

Rassman on Rassman! Which boat were you a passenger on? PCF-3 or PCF-94?

“It's all personal,” Rassman of Oregon said in describing the work he has done for the Kerry campaign. “I think that all politics is personal. Even though he saved my life, it's a combination of the job he's done in the Senate and the person I know him to be via my observation of him in Vietnam.”

Rassman was a Green Beret in Vietnam when the river boat he was riding hit a mine in the Hap River and came under heavy enemy fire from the banks. A short distance ahead, then-Navy Lt. Kerry was in command of a Swift Boat also under attack. Kerry, wounded in the arm, ordered his boat to turn around. He directed his gunners to provide suppressing fire, then moved into an exposed position on the bow to pull Rassman out of the water.

Kerry was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with a Combat V for his actions that day in March 1969.

Rassman hadn't seen Kerry again until this year.

http://www.arizonatribune.com/index.php?sty=25250

Jim Rassman Speaks Out

Jim Rassman is the Vietnam veteran John Kerry saved from almost certain death after Rassman was thrown overboard during a Swift boat patrol. Kerry returned under enemy fire to pull Rassman out of the river and to safety. Rassman has been a strong defender of John Kerry's military record, speaking out against those who question the story of his rescue by Kerry. The Wall Street Journal ran this op-ed by Jim Rassman today.


The Guy Who Was Actually There Speaks Out for Kerry
Shame on the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush
By JIM RASSMANN
Wall Street Journal
August 10, 2004
I came to know Lt. John Kerry during the spring of 1969. He and his swift boat crew assisted in inserting our Special Forces team and our Chinese Nung soldiers into operational sites in the Cau Mau Peninsula of South Vietnam. I worked with him on many operations and saw firsthand his leadership, courage and decision-making ability under fire.

On March 13, 1969, John Kerry's courage and leadership saved my life.
While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonated under another swift boat. Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river, and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John's swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.

When I surfaced, all the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire from both banks. To avoid the incoming fire, I repeatedly swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, attempting to make it to the north bank of the river.

I thought I would die right there. The odds were against me avoiding the incoming fire and, even if I made it out of the river, I thought I'd be captured and executed. Kerry must have seen me in the water and directed his driver, Del Sandusky, to turn the boat around.

Kerry's boat ran up to me in the water, bow on, and I was able to climb up a cargo net to the lip of the deck. But, because I was nearly upside down, I couldn't make it over the edge of the deck. This left me hanging out in the open, a perfect target. John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat, came out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us from the jungle, and pulled me aboard.

http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/002411.html

As for the first, more fundamental objection to the convention video, Thurlow says that Kerry's version of the events of March 13, 1969, is simply wrong. "His story is a total fabrication," Thurlow says. One of the Swift Boats did hit a mine that day, Thurlow says, but much of the rest of Kerry's story is inaccurate. "This thing about being under intense enemy fire is a falsehood...There was no fire off either bank [of the river]. This thing about getting Jim out of the river under a hail of bullets with these serious injuries is totally fabricated."

"We fired our weapons onto the bank to suppress any chance that there might be snipers that might try to pick off guys in the chaos," Thurlow says. "But I don't remember any fire from the banks." Thurlow also says he saw Kerry briefly toward the end of the day, and "he wasn't bleeding, and he wasn't hurt."

Thurlow's recollection of events, along with those of other veterans who were there, will be part of an upcoming book by John O'Neill, a leader of Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, a group of Kerry's former colleagues, mostly his fellow Navy officers, who oppose Kerry's presidential candidacy.

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200407301059.asp

The Swift boat he and Kerry were on went to help another that had been ambushed. An explosion knocked Rassmann into the water. When Kerry realized Rassmann was missing, he brought his craft back. Rassmann grabbed some netting strung over the bow and struggled to climb aboard while under fire from both banks of the narrow river.

"Suddenly, John runs out of the pilot house," Rassman said. "He had this look on his face. He knew he was going to get hit. He ... dropped to his hands and knees and reached down and grabbed me and pulled me up to the deck."

http://www.denverpost.com/framework/0,1413,36~27772~2303248,00.html


On March 13, 1969, Rassman was a 21-year-old lieutenant in Army Special Forces when he was blown overboard from a boat next to Kerry’s on the Bay Hap River. Someone on Kerry’s boat saw Rassman in the water, dodging sniper fire from both banks.

In a recollection decades later, Kerry said: “Jim was exhausted from swimming, and my right arm hurt and I couldn’t pull very hard with it. Everyone else was firing a machine gun or something. … Christ knows how, but somehow we got him on board and I didn’t get the bullet in the head I expected.”

Rassman said he clung to the bow of Kerry’s boat in an awkward position, unable to pull himself onto the deck.

“I was just incredulous to see John run out of that pilothouse and up onto the deck,” he said. “I truly did expect him to get shot. One newspaper quoted me as saying, ‘What a dummy.’ It was not dumb — it was blind courage on his part.”

Except for a letter that went unanswered in 1984, just after Kerry was elected to the U.S. Senate, Rassman made no further attempt to contact Kerry.

Then in January, while in a bookstore in Los Angeles, Rassman saw copies of “Tour of Duty,” a book by historian Douglas Brinkley about Kerry’s military and antiwar experiences. It is based largely on Kerry’s letters and journals and interviews with him and the men who served with him.

Rassman read about his rescue.

“I turned to my wife and told her the story,” he said. “She read it. Then I took the book out of her hand, closed it, put it back on the counter, took her by the hand and left the store. I was overwhelmed and choked up.”

http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=84021
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On Sale! Order in lots of 100 now at velero@rcn.com Free for the cost of shipping All profits (if any, especially now) go to Swiftvets. The author of "Sink Kerry Swiftly" ---ASPB

[Jette]

"Hannity & Colmes," August 5, 2004:
[excerpt]

ESTRICH: Mr. Rassman, can I ask you a question? You're not a Democrat, are you?
RASSMAN: I turned Democrat in January. Previous to that, I had been a Republican for 33, 35 years. I didn't always vote Republican. But much of the time, I did.

Compare with:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005460
BY JIM RASSMANN

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Nobody asked me to join John's campaign. Why would they? I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans.

[soccer4ever]

Good posts
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[BL]

[integritycounts]

Great posts and links....I would like to see the definitive answer to this question of which boat Rassman was in before he hit the water....I have seen interviews which said it was confused....this confirms the very clear confusion.

I logically tend to think that Rassman was not on Kerry's boat. The reason being, if he started off on that boat and was thrown off, the chances of ANYONE, leaving the man behind, including not being seen by the rest of the crew...is very low.

It makes far more sense for Kerry to bug out when the explosion hit, and then come back.

I believe records can prove this beyond any doubt including interviews with other Swiftees

[hanna]

Here is more confusion:

Rassmann's river patrol of Swift boats had been blown out of the water in a barrage of fire from Viet Cong AK-47s and rocket launchers. He had come up for air, taking sniper fire from both banks, sure "my ticket was punched.''
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/08/MNGKO4RLT71.DTL
On March 13, 1969, Rassmann, a Green Beret, was traveling down the Bay Hap river in a boat behind Kerry’s when both were ambushed by exploding land mines and enemy fire coming from the shore. Kerry was hit in the arm, while a mine blew Rassmann’s boat out of the water. With enemy fire coming from both sides of the river and swift boats evacuating from the area, Kerry’s crew chose to turn their boat toward the ambush to save Rassmann.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0117d.html

Rassmann, a first lieutenant in the Army special forces, was eating a chocolate chip cookie on Kerry’s patrol boat as it pulled back from a fire fight when a nearby boat hit a mine. During the ensuing combat, Kerry’s boat was rocked by another explosion, which injured Kerry and tossed Rassmann into the water.
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/07/22/76146.php
While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonated under another swift boat. Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river, and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John's swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005460
The group had already lost one soldier that day. As they sped down the river, one boat was blown out of the water, and then another. An explosion wounded Kerry in the arm and threw Rassmann into the river. Rassmann dove to the bottom to avoid being run over by the other boats. When he surfaced, he saw the convoy had gone ahead.

Viet Cong snipers fired at him, and Rassmann submerged over and over to avoid being hit. The bullets came from both banks, and Rassmann had nowhere to go. He began thinking his time had come, but the fifth time he came up, he saw the convoy had turned around. Kerry had ordered the boats back to pick up the man overboard.

Another quote from this same article….read between the lines.

If Kerry gets elected president, he'll have reason to thank Rassmann. One day Rassmann hopes the two of them will be able shake hands in private, away from any TV camera, and — acknowledging their debt to each other — call it even.

http://www.htmlhelponline.com/kerry/news1.html

Based on Kerry's recollections, "Tour of Duty" says Rassmann was on another boat, but Rassmann recalls sitting in the hatchway of Kerry's pilothouse, returning from a patrol with ethnic Chinese mercenaries, when a mine blew up under one of the other boats and the riverbanks erupted in gunfire. The medal citation is not clear.

"It was a long time ago," Rassmann said of the discrepency.

Rassmann recalls sidling along the deck next to the pilot house, a rifle in each hand, intending to give one to the bow gunner, when a second mine detonated, launching him into the water. Weighed down by guns, grenades, and ammunition, he sank to the bottom until the five boats passed overhead, then shed his gear and surfaced.

"That's when the VC started shooting at me," he said. "I was closest to the north bank. I decided that was the way to go. But I remember thinking it really didn't matter, because they were shooting at us from both banks. If I couldn't evade them or didn't get rescued, I figured I would get killed if I got captured, because that's what they almost always did to people in my unit."

http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/01/24/oregon/news04.prt

Rassmann recalls sidling along the deck next to the pilot house, a rifle in each hand, intending to give one to the bow gunner, when a second mine detonated, launching him into the water. Weighed down by guns, grenades, and ammunition, he sank to the bottom until the five boats passed overhead, then shed his gear and surfaced.

"That's when the VC started shooting at me," he said. "I was closest to the north bank. I decided that was the way to go. But I remember thinking it really didn't matter, because they were shooting at us from both banks. If I couldn't evade them or didn't get rescued, I figured I would get killed if I got captured, because that's what they almost always did to people in my unit."

http://www.vnsfvetakerry.com/jim_rassmann.htm

“Our boat was hit by something and I was blown overboard, and whatever that was that blew me over also wounded John Kerry in the arm. The V.C.s started firing at me from both banks and I started to swim underwater towards the north bank. Every time I came up for air, I'd get more fire and this went on until I finally came up for air about the fifth time. And I noticed that the boats had come back to the rescue.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4042393/

[sevry]

If it's true that Rassman has been lying, does anyone have a suggestion as to why, and for how long? Was Rassman given a medal for that day? Could he have been hiding a similar sort of fraud as Kerry's? To those who know more, surely these seem like naive questions. I just wanted to ask. And by way of stupid questions, I'm curious if anyone knows whether Rassman was an Army Ranger or Marine, and what rank? Does he know? Was this a 'Walter Mitty' stunt similar to Kerry's 'incursion' into Cambodia?

[The Ghost]

ok i have a stupid question

while we can't get the records of the people involved

is there a way to get records of the boats involved ??

it should be easy to see which boats received fire that day by the amount of bullet holes in the boats and other damage reports on the boats

i would think that it would be easier to get these reports and should not require kerry or any one else's signature

any ideas ??

[baldeagl]

OK, I'm intrigued now. If you read all of Rassmann's accounts of what happened, the one thing that remains consistent throughout is that Rassmann was on a boat that hit a mine. Since there's only one damage report for that day, and it shows a boat that was completely disabled by damage, that must be the boat that Rassmann was one.

Since Kerry himself states that his boat towed the 3, Kerry's boat could not have been disabled. That means the SpotReport wrongly identifies the 94 as the disabled boat. (There's no way Kerry's boat could have towed anything if it was as badly damaged as the report indicates it was.)

This tends to weaken Rassmann's credibility. His recollections of the events of that day are troubled by two problems. First, he was underwater much of the time, so he can't really be sure where the bullets were coming from (friendly or foe?). Second, he was blown off a boat. How in God's name could he be sure about anything after that?

I think it's particularly revealing that in some accounts he claims he was "eating a chocolate cookie" when he was blown off the boat and in others he was going forward to hand an M-16 to the forward gunner. These two scenarios are mutually exclusive.

I thought I was done blogging this stuff. Now you guys have got me worked up again.
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antimedia
USN OST-6 68-74
http://antimedia.blogspot.com/

[hanna]

LOL:)

I don't think that is consistent.

Rassmann, a first lieutenant in the Army special forces, was eating a chocolate chip cookie on Kerry’s patrol boat as it pulled back from a fire fight when a nearby boat hit a mine. During the ensuing combat, Kerry’s boat was rocked by another explosion, which injured Kerry and tossed Rassmann into the water.

http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2004/07/22/76146.php

I think the above scenario is closest to accurate. He was ON Kerry's boat, as it PULLED BACK FROM A FIREFIGHT, as A NEARBY BOAT was hit by a mine.

Kerry's boat rocketed by another explosion....how can that be? He had pulled back from the so-called fire fight. Eye witnesses say there was no firefight, just the one mine.

Some of the documentation talks about the 94 boat having to come back to pull Rasmussen out of the water. Well why would it have to go back if it had not left?

[kate]

kerry & rassmann are trying to figure it out

http://www.iowapresidentialwatch.com/images/cartoons/CollideMd.JPG
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one of..... We The People

[jalexson]

[baldeagl]

I now can document the following with regard to Jim Rassmann's versions of the 3/13/69 incident:

1) Omaha World Herald - 1/18/2004 "he and Kerry were traveling down a river in Vietnam on separate boats"
2) St. Petersburg Times - 2/8/2004 "The explosion also tossed Rassmann out of a third vessel, the PCF-35." (Note: PCF 35 wasn't even there!)
3) NY Times - 2/22/2004 "he rescued Jim Rassmann, a member of his crew" (Now he's a Swiftee)
4) Australian Magazine - 7/10/2004 "Lieutenant Jim Rassmann is thrown from his boat and forgotten as the Swifts head full-throttle out of trouble." "HIS boat?" This one is particularly offensive because he claims that all the Swiftees abandoned him.
5) St. Louis Dispatch - 7/25/2004 "Jim Rassmann, a Green Beret, was among those being ferried in a Swift boat behind Kerry's vessel" Now he's in a boat behind Kerry.

Does anybody know where Rassmann really was? It's clear that he doesn't know!
_________________
antimedia
USN OST-6 68-74
http://antimedia.blogspot.com/

[SJorgensen]

One thing that would focus the discussion would be the discovery of the gear left on the river bottom. These issues are pivotal on the history of that day, and have become important again in the events that are happening today.

Of all the accounts I have the least faith in the account of that man that was the most motivated (even then) to ascribe events to his own heroics.

This is becoming a forensics quest for the truth. So much of our future depends on whether or not we understand the past, and whether or not we are correct in our assessment of the qualities of the people that we will elect.

Kerry ascribes these qualities to himself and accuses all the others of attrocities.

I am a Democrat and I would like nothing more than to see anyone else than Bush elected. However I can not vote for Kerry because I believe that you men hold the truth on your side.

I hope you continue to expose the facts.

Thanks,

Spencer Jorgensen