Kerry saved life of Oregon man

EUGENE (AP) - When Florence resident Jim Rassmann offered to volunteer for the John Kerry presidential campaign he was thinking along the lines of answering phones and licking envelopes.

The retired sheriff's deputy is a political junkie, but hardly a zealot. And he's a registered Republican.

But Kerry's campaign strategists whisked him straight to Iowa for a tearful public reunion with the senator, who almost 35 years ago dragged him out of a river in Vietnam in a hail of enemy gunfire.

Rassmann moved to Florence from Los Angeles a decade ago. But the emotion welled up a few days ago when Rassmann, a former Green Beret lieutenant, saw a copy of "Tour of Duty," which details Kerry's experiences in the Navy piloting a swift boat in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

"As chance would have it, I opened it at random to the page that talked about this particular incident," he recalled Monday in a telephone interview from Iowa with the Eugene Register-Guard.

Rassmann has followed Kerry's Senate career, especially his time on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the POW/MIA Committee that worked to re-establish ties with Vietnam.

"It put him head and shoulders above the rest of the candidates, and I include Wesley Clark in that," Rassmann said.

Rassmann was a windfall, said John Hurley, director of the Veterans for Kerry campaign.

"It was just thrilling to get this phone call out of the blue," Hurley said Monday from Iowa. "Normally I'm a calm guy, but I was dancing and shrieking."

"The reunion they had was very, very emotional," Hurley said. "Jim was broken up and John Kerry was teary-eyed."

Since the public reunion on Sunday, Rassmann and Kerry have had some private time for reminiscing.

They recalled the time Rassmann wouldn't let any soldiers near three earthenware jars whose lids were tied down.

He shot them up and the jars exploded, not because they were booby-trapped but because they were full of fermenting fish sauce, which drenched him.

"The stench was indescribable. I've had nightmares about that smell. ... We laughed like fools remembering," Rassmann said.

Rassmann said he will change party affiliations when he gets back to Oregon so that he can vote for Kerry in the May primary.

"People should examine the candidates closely, see what their political philosophy is and how that meshes with their own ideas," he said, adding he believes President Bush comes up short.

"I have absolutely no trouble with the reasons why we went to Afghanistan and I'm immensely proud of the job special ops troops did there. ... But I was not comfortable with Iraq. I wasn't adamantly against it, but I believed what the administration said about the reasons for going. I truly believed what they said, and it's obviously been total nonsense," he said.

He'll be back in Eugene and Florence this week for a presentation to a local orchid society - he's an avid grower - but on Friday he'll head for New Hampshire to help Kerry there.

Jim Rassmann, a former Green Beret lieutenant, saw a copy of "Tour of Duty," which details Kerry's experiences in the Navy piloting a swift boat in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

Kerry and Rassmann have not seen each other since 1969. Jim Rassmann called John Kerry’s campaign headquarters and said: "I saw that John is in another tough fight, and I want to lend a hand."

Rassmann has followed Kerry's Senate career, especially his time on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the POW/MIA Committee that worked to re-establish ties with Vietnam.

Rassmann recommended Kerry for his Bronze Star.

Rassmann said he will change party affiliations when he gets back to Oregon so that he can vote for Kerry in the May primary

People should examine the candidates closely, see what their political philosophy is and how that meshes with their own ideas," he said, adding he believes President Bush comes up short.~Jim Rassmann

Kerry shaking hands with Daniel Ortega as Senator and Mrs. Tom Harkin look on.

The real John Kerry, lets not forget

John Kerry, Another Traitor...

I keep hearing Vietnam Veteran everytime this joker makes a speech. Below adds some perspective. As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go unmentioned - and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.

When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals. The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag.

Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an anti-war activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later admitted they weren't his. Now they are displayed on his office wall.

Long after he changed sides in congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with Hanoi. At the same time, his cousin C. Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam ??? an odd coincidence.

As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans fought and died.

The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone. On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity. Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial.

As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam.

MICHAEL BENGE Foreign Service officer and former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973) Washington Ladies and Gents, I give you John Kerry, traitor, liar and cowardly bastard. And here I was, thinking that I already had ENOUGH reasons to despise him.

*****

ALSO FROM

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.

"We were still under fire, and he was wounded at the time…," recalled Rassmann. And with his boat’s gunners providing suppressing fire, Kerry extended his wounded arm into the water and the two lieutenants locked arms.

Kerry and Rassmann have not seen each other since 1969. Jim Rassmann called John Kerry’s campaign headquarters and said: "I saw that John is in another tough fight, and I want to lend a hand."

http://supportthevets.com/youmansJAN04.htm

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