Why is Rassmann willing to carry his water?????
Maybe it's partly the other way around, as well. Rassmann seems to have been in with Kerry on some of this. He wasn't the only one in the water, that day. Others on the scene said there was no enemy fire. And it wasn't Kerry's boat that got hit. In fact, Kerry bugged out, perhaps to avoid injury to himself as is Gardner's general complaint about Kerry. Then Kerry came back and fished Rassmann out of the water as others were pulled out by the boat that hadn't been hit, as I understand it.