SwiftVets.com

[hanna]

A Veteran's Awakening
By LEAH BETH WARD
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC



GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Vietnam vets Terry Champoux, left, and Jim Rassman chat briefly as Rassman makes his way through a small crowd of Democratic supporters Wednesday night in Yakima. Rassmann credits Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry with saving his life. Rassmann spoke to Democratic party loyalists at the Yakima County Democratic headquarters Wednesday night.

Over some 35 years, Jim Rassmann never unlocked certain compartments in his mind, those narrow spaces where memories of his year-long tour in Vietnam smoldered.

Then last January, Rassmann and his wife walked into a Portland bookstore. He picked up a copy of "Tour of Duty," a historical account of John Kerry's transformation from soldier to antiwar activist.

"I read about the day I was blown off the boat and I lost it. I lost it in a Barnes & Noble," Rassmann said in an interview Wednesday.

It was part of an awakening that had started months before with the former Republican's growing disenchantment with Bush administration policies in Iraq.

"I decided for the first time in my life I was not only going to vote for the person who would do the best job, but I was going to actively participate. The next thing I knew I was in Des Moines (Iowa)," Rassmann said, where he reunited with Kerry and joined the campaign.

On Wednesday, this stocky, retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, now living in Florence, Ore. where he grows orchids, brought his Vietnam memories and his support for Kerry's presidential challenge to the Yakima Valley.


GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Jim Rassmann, speaking in support of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry Wednesday night in Yakima, calls himself a "recovering Republican" and says "I trust (Kerry) implicitly."

In Toppenish, he discussed veterans benefits with Yakama Nation veterans and leaders, who gave him a beaded belt buckle and an Eagle Head medallion.

At Democratic Party offices in Yakima, Rassmann held a crowd of about 50 rapt with his descriptions of war and his straightforward opinions on Bush, Iraq and Kerry.

"I think we have an incompetent cowboy in power. He has wasted lives and a fortune."

Rassmann called Kerry "loyal" and "trustworthy" and said his stance against the Vietnam war upon returning home helped end the war.

"John showed more courage in doing that than pulling my skinny rear end out of the water," Rassman said.

An Army Special Forces Officer in Vietnam, Rassmann said Kerry's swift boat crew frequently assisted his team, which included Chinese soldiers, in entering operational sites in the Cau Mau Peninsula of South Vietnam.

On March 13, 1969, Rassmann said he volunteered his team for a mission on Hap Bay River on a boat piloted by Kerry. During an ambush, a mine detonated under another boat and a second blast threw him overboard. Taking fire from both banks, Rassmann said he dove under water several times for as long as he could hold his breath.

His account on the JohnKerry.com Web site credits Kerry with spotting him in the water and ordering the driver to turn the boat around.

"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," Rassman recalled.

Despite his brush with death, Rassmann said what haunts him most about the mission is "the fact that I lost so many people. Chinese soldiers and my own NCO," a noncommissioned officer.

Rassmann nominated Kerry for a Silver Star; the Navy game him a Bronze Star.

Rassmann's account has been challenged by another swift boat commander, Larry Thurlow, who said in an anti-Kerry ad that, "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry." Thurlow also disputed Rassmann's assertion that all five swift boats that day were under fire.

Last month, in part of the bitter back-and-forth over Kerry's service, retired Chief Petty Officer Robert Lambert of Central Point, Ore., contradicted Thurlow, who was his commander.

"Thurlow was far too distracted with rescue efforts to even realize he was under fire," Lambert told the Associated Press.

Lambert, who also earned a Bronze Star for pulling Thurlow out of the water, said he's not voting for Kerry. "I don't like the man himself but I think what happened happened, and he was there."

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an anti-Kerry group of Vietnam veterans, continues to stand by Thurlow's account.

A 1969 Navy report on the incident supports Lambert and Rassmann. Last week, the Navy Inspector General said procedures followed in the awarding of Kerry's medals were proper. In addition to the Bronze Star, he has a Silver Star and three Purple Heart medals.

Rassmann said he was disappointed by the Swift Boat group's accusations.

"All these people operated admirably in Vietnam," he said. "I have no ax to grind with them. They should have no ax to grind with John Kerry."

[Rdtf]

So Kerry basically convinced Rassman he saved his life...

[one more captins mast]

ask someone who was in this kind of fix, and what the first thing

the radio man did as he "got cover' CALL FOR SUPPORT, not

pull people out of the river and then drive down the river, after

securing the hit boat.......bs, bs, bs, bs, bs


much bs here. and rassman is in the middle of it.
_________________
the strange mr aj

[ScottyDog]

How much has the Kerry Campaign contributed to Rassman?

My guess he has been promised a food tasters position in the Kerry Administration.