Posted on 10/27/2004 9:57:07 PM PDT by freespirited
PALM BEACH GARDENS — The swift boat veterans of Vietnam who say Sen. John Kerry lied about his war wounds to get a Purple Heart and betrayed American soldiers with his antiwar activities have faded from the limelight, but their effort to keep Kerry out of the Oval Office is going strong.
Several members of Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, a tax-exempt, nonpartisan political action committee, stopped in Palm Beach Gardens Tuesday afternoon en route to a rally today in Orlando.
One of them, Michael Cronin, was a Navy pilot in Vietnam who spent six years in a North Vietnamese prison. It enrages Cronin to think that while he was being interrogated by his captors about alleged war crimes, Kerry was bolstering those claims by giving speeches about U.S. soldiers' "atrocities" in Vietnam.
"It was discouraging that a brother officer would do this," said Cronin, 63.
Swift boat veteran Joe Ponder of Keystone Heights did not serve with Kerry, but said Kerry's leadership role in the antiwar movement after he returned from Vietnam showed he's not fit to be commander in chief of the U.S. military.
"He spread communist propaganda about the war," said Ponder, 57.
During his brief time in Vietnam, Kerry was captain of a swift boat whose mission was to draw fire from the Viet Cong to expose their location. Kerry was awarded three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star.
One of Kerry's biggest allies in the dispute over his war record has been Jim Rassman, a former Army special forces lieutenant who said Kerry saved his life by pulling him out of a river after he was thrown off a swift boat when an enemy mine exploded.
Rassman said during a speech in Riviera Beach last month that veterans shouldn't distort Kerry's record because they're angry that he joined the antiwar movement.
I would still like to know what Rassman did to the woman in the sheriff's office in L.A. that forced him out.
Lets find out and ruin this chump
Posted by 68 grunt to doug from upland
On News/Activism 08/28/2004 12:29:50 AM PDT · 260 of 260
Received from a friend of mine:
....."I worked with him at Men Central Jail. His arrogance was beyond belief. There were many of us who had served in Vietnam assigned to MCJ, but Rassman 'hated Marines'. ( his quote - I retorted that it was "penis envy" '). He was never accepted as a leader and I once referred to him as a "police imposter" at which he physically assaulted me by hitting me in the head with his "Kel-Lite". As we were on a transportation bus coming back from another facility the deputies I was with smartly pulled Rassman's pants off of him. When we arrived back at MCJ, he stepped off the bus in his skivy's"!....."When Lt Rassman was a watch commander, one observer recalled him chasing female employees reminiscent of "Pirates of the Carribean" when he was on watch. Rassman was transferred to Cresenta Valley Station where a repeat of his prior antics cost him his career!.........
"...Kerry was captain of a swift boat..."
The man was an Officer-in-Charge, which is a far cry from a Captain. Check Navy Regulations.
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