Rassmann, reached by telephone yesterday, said he has never had any question that Kerry deserved the Purple Heart. He said there were two separate events: One was earlier in the day, when he and Kerry blew up a rice cache, and the explosion caused some of the rice to hit Kerry, and perhaps some weapon fragments as well. The second involved a mine explosion as Kerry and Rassmann were on patrol. The explosion, Rassmann said, knocked him overboard and threw Kerry against the pilot house, injuring his arm.
Rassmann said that he has always believed that Kerry got the third Purple Heart solely for the injury to his arm as a result of the explosion in the water.
''If he got fragments in the buttocks due to the mine, that is new information to me," Rassmann said.
''I would say there is confusion. Maybe they did lump it together. It was my understanding he got it for the wound being thrown across the pilot house."
Yes, Rassman sounds confused. I think Rassman believes the arm injury alone entitled Kerry to the Purple Heart. It didn't. That was a 'contusion,' or bruising -- no bleeding, nothing broken.
The wound that qualified for a Purple Heart was the shrapnel in the butt -- which Kerry lied about the real cause thereof in his Navy injury report. The underwater mine explosion did not cause it. It was self-inflicted earlier that day, on land, as Kerry tossed a grenade into a rice bin and stayed too close.
Self-inflicted wounds do not qualify for Purple Hearts.
As it has been pointed out... if the shrapnel in Kerry's butt happened due to an underwater mine exploding, how did the RICE end up in his ASS, too???