SwiftVets.com

[BL]

The more I read involving Rassman, the more I am convinced that the major media believe the man is a staunch republican and crossed over because John Kerry Saved his life. I pieced the following together the other day and it moves all this Republican Rassman stuff to the way side and puts him in either the "independant" or "democrat" column though he may still have been a registered republican, which he isn't anymore.

Back in July (July 23rd to be exact), it appears Rassman let a little of his voting record slip out and informed people in Sierra Vista and Tucson Arizona some of how he has voted in the past.
Source 1:
Sierra Vista Herald (Arizona)
http://www.svherald.com/articles/2004/07/24/local_news/news5.txt

Source 2:
Political State Record Web Site
http://www.polstate.com/archives/005840.html#005840

From Source 1:

[ASPB]

BZ BL
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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

[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

[Herb]

Anybody else here know the "trick" for climbing over the rail at the top of a roap or cargo net?

They teach it in Special Forces school -- Rassman a Green Beret should know it. (really, unless they started teaching it later <grin>)

He claims an "awkward position" but his HEAD is over the rail where he can watch Kerry, even look up and see the expression on his face?

(The trick is to keep climbing even when your ARMS have reached the top; you keep climbing with your feet until your upper body is high enough to fold over. -- You learn that "trick" once you never forget it 35 years later even.)
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Herb