Rassmann opens veterans counter for Kerry (getting "very irritated")

wqad.com ^ | August 18, 2004 | AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

DES MOINES, Iowa Jim Rassmann, who credits John Kerry with saving his life while under fire in Vietnam, is countering new commercials challenging the Democratic nominee's war record.

Rassmann, a former Special Forces officer, is in Iowa today. It's his first visit to the state since January when he was reunited with Kerry after more than 30 years.

His visit, which started in Cedar Rapids this morning, comes as another group of Vietnam veterans airs T-V ads accusing Kerry of fabricating his war record.

Rassmann says he has little patience for it and it's starting to be "very irritating."

[RasterMaster]

The story I heard that Lard a$$ Rassman was busy looking for enemy EATING A COOKIE when he fell off the boat.

[sawmill trash]

I wonder what this guy does for a living and how he talked his boss into letting him take off and fly around the country, I'm sure at his own expense, and campaign for his savior.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

But Rassmann is not refuting what is being said. He is probably grateful for Kerry pulling him out of the water after his boat hit a mine and probably feels that John deserves a medal for it. But the evidence is that there was no fire, no valor - hence there should be no Silver Star.

Well, Rassmann is going to drown if he doesn't let loose of John Kerry's clutches.

[StAnDeliver]

"Rassmann says he has little patience for it and it's starting to be "very irritating."

Monsieur Rassman's lips are "irritated" from being stuck to Kerry's derriere...

[Prost1]

Question: Mr. Rassmann, have you ever received a payment, check, cash or anything of value from John F. Kerry or Terressa Kerry or any foundation connected to John or Terressa Kerry or any group sponsoring or supporting J. F. Kerry? If so, what, what value or how much and when? Do you expect future gifts or payments?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

John Kerry (news - web sites) points to delegates shortly after arriving on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts on July 29, 2004. Kerry was joined on stage by former Green Beret Jim Rassmann (L), whose life Kerry saved in Vietnam. Saying 'America can do better,' John Kerry took the reins of the Democratic Party on Thursday with a promise to restore U.S. global leadership and ask 'hard questions' before taking the country to war. In a prime-time, televised address that gave Kerry a national stage to introduce himself and lay out his case for the presidency, he said he would try to bridge America's cultural and economic divides and make the Nov. 2 election 'a contest of big ideas.' REUTERS/Gary Hershorn US ELECTION

[Cincinatus' Wife]

(Why isn't Berger in jail?)

Bump!

[Prost1]

Looks like Rassmann never got over his fondness for cookies...

[mwl1]

"what other group of veterans airing new tv ads..."

Huh?

[Cboldt]

But Rassmann is not refuting what is being said. He is probably grateful for Kerry pulling him out of the water after his boat hit a mine and probably feels that John deserves a medal for it. But the evidence is that there was no fire, no valor - hence there should be no Silver Star.

Rassmann put Kerry in for the Silver Star for this incident. The citation and medal awarded were a Bronze Star.

If Rassmann is tired and irritated at this, I suggest he take a vacation from the issue. I'd be satisfied if he just stopped appearing. He doesn't need to jump sides to satisfy my sensibilities.

[fizziwig]

"Rassmann is very irritating, but he owes the guy who pulled him out of the water. I understand the loyalty, even if we see it as misplaced"

Yeah, I understand it too. Kind of like when Forni pulled Brubaker out of the water after he ditched his jet in the sea, and then Brubaker bailed Forni out of jail when he started a brawl over being jilted by Kimiko his japanese girlfriend.

[Cboldt]

I wonder what this guy does for a living and how he talked his boss into letting him take off and fly around the country ...

He's retired LAPD. Lives in Oregon. He has time on his hands. I don't have a problem with Kerry paying Rassmann's travel and living expenses.

[KeyLargo]

This from:

VIETNAM SPECIAL FORCES/ AND SPECIAL OPERATIONS OTHER VIETNAM VETERANS EX-POWS-KIA/MIA FAMILIES AND FRIENDS AND THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY AGAINST KERRY
http://www.vnsfvetakerry.com/

http://www.vnsfvetakerry.com/jim_rassmann.htm

A CQ reader who wishes to remain anonymous sent this over to me this morning. The reader claims that he had Special Forces experience in Viet Nam and has this to say about Rassman:

There are a lot of angles to the Kerry saga. I doubt anyone gets to every question, but some are compelling to me. The question that goes begging today is why was Rassman there at all?

I don't believe SF will take an official position on this, so I'll post what I have heard. I have never bad mouthed fellow SFers before, but I do have these comments from some sources I trust.

Rassman was reportedly the Asst S-1, which means he was the assistant admininistrative officer. Not exactly a key sought after job for an SF officer LOL. In fact I don't recall knowing of any official Asst S-1 officer slots in the field. Jobs like that are created to keep idiots off the teams.

He was supposedly in charge of awards and decorations (A&D) in a field unit. SF didn't issue many, so it was hardly a taxing assignment. The man doing that job at SF HQ RVN was a Sergeant. Giving it to an officer in a field unit as a primary duty is beyond unusual.

He was probably AWOL when he was with Kerry. At best someone may have said, OK go, just to get him out of the way.

My comments and speculation.

If Rassman was an A&D clerk, his knowledge of how to get awards approved was probably very interesting to Kerry. Since reports indicate he wrote the citation for Kerry's SS, I believe this speculation is well-founded.

And how does an SF LT fall out of a 50' boat? I have been through days and weeks of small boat training and drills, we never had anyone fall out.

Rassman says he was under fire. Anytime anyone was shooting within 50 yds of me I always assumed I was the target until I could prove otherwise. Rassman could not do that while in the drink. I will take the word of the other boat crews that there was no enemy fire at all. They had the best view to assess the situation. My mind keeps going back to Rassman's A&D job. He knew if there was no enemy fire there would be no award citations.

This entire operation smells bad to me. Kerry was in command he gets credit for everything his unit did and everything it failed to do. The Swiftvets are getting heavy pressure and questioning. I would like to see a reporter question Rassman in detail.

To me, the Bronze Star story is really the least of Kerry's problems. However, if the official after-action reports ever come out from the other teams there that day, it may prove rather embarrassing for Rassman, regardless of how many times he can say Spaeth Communications and John McCain in a 1500-word essay. And that's really the crux of the matter: we need to see the entire file on John Kerry to determine who's telling the truth. Is it John Kerry and a handful of people, or over 200 combat veterans who were also there and saw him in action?

Until John Kerry releases his complete military records, the credibility of the Swiftvets will continue to grow. As long as Kerry keeps answering their well-documented allegations with nothing but intimidation tactics, his credibility will be completely suspect. Jim Rassman cannot save John Kerry from himself.

Posted by Captain Ed at 09:56 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

---

Hopefully, other Special Forces veterans that actually knew Rasmann will come forward and provide some background on Rasmann.

[saveliberty]

I received my information from the American Spectator, posted below

John Kerry’s Bodyguard of Lies
By Thomas Lipscomb
Published 8/12/2004 12:08:38 AM


NEW YORK -- Winston Churchill often repeated Stalin's observation that "in wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended to be a bodyguard of lies." And now that the Democratic National Convention has ended with Kerry's acceptance speech concentrating on his four month service in the Vietnam War 35 years ago, rather than his service during the past 35 years, it appears particularly appropriate.

One of the pesky IRS Code 527 organizations that now buzz through the campaign atmosphere like insatiable horseflies in the aftermath of McCain-Finegold reforms has had the presumption to raise some serious questions about the truth of John Kerry's Vietnam wartime service.

Called "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth," the group has a website, airs TV ads running in key "battleground" states, and has published a book. The conniving and self-promoting lies of the John Kerry it portrays make Sammy Glick look like a rank amateur.

If the incidents it details are true, Kerry was a coward who fled in battle having unintentionally thrown his current supporter, Jim Rassmann, overboard in his panic. Kerry tried to get his first Purple Heart on the basis of a tiny self-inflicted wound from his own grenade. His supporter, Max Cleland, accidentally blew both his legs off and one hand off with one of his own grenades, but never asked for a Purple Heart because, just as in John Kerry's case, there was no enemy action at the time. Kerry went behind the back of the commander who refused his medal request and the doctor who had treated him, and got one anyway.

Swiftvet officers watched this kind of behavior for four months into Kerry's 12 month "tour of duty." Then three of them told him pointedly that he'd better use the three Purple Heart escape clause and return to the States fast. Kerry left the next morning. And those are just a few of charges the Swiftvets are making. It certainly is a very different picture of the war hero than his campaign has been painting of their JFK: John Forbes Kerry -- but this time as John "Flashman" Kerry.


"CONSIDER THE SOURCE" INVITED Kerry campaign spokesman Luis Vizcaino. And last week Marc Elias, General Counsel for Kerry-Edwards 2000, and Joseph Sandler, General Counsel for the Democratic National Committee sent a hurried and semi-hysterical letter warning television stations not to run Swift Boat Vets ads setting out their definition of "the source" It is well worth reading as a reductio of Kerry campaign logic.

"The group is a sham organization," it points out. Yet the Swift Boat Veterans had been organized months earlier with the IRS and Federal Election Commission, just like MoveOn.org and dozens of other 527s, and was no more "sham" than they were. As a matter of fact they had elected to remain unincorporated under the regulation and take the risk of being perhaps the only 527 in which its members were willing to accept personal liability for their actions, unlike MoveOn which had compared Bush to Hitler. The Swiftvets are either very brave or very dumb.

"The advertisement contains statements by men who purport to have served on Senator Kerry's SWIFT Boat in Vietnam… they pretend to have served with Senator Kerry… ." Actually nothing in the ad calls any of the men it cites as being Kerry's crew members. And there can be no doubt they "served with Senator Kerry" in the same Coastal Group 11 at the same time. Worse still, 16 out of the 23 surviving officers and commanders who served with Kerry at the base now claim he is unfit for command, much less to become commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. And the Swiftvets claim to have a total of 254 members who served from Seaman to Admiral in Kerry's Coastal Squadron 1, including several of Kerry's commanding officers and some sailors who had been on Kerry's boat.

"Fake 'witnesses' speaking on behalf of a phony organization…"? Swiftboat service was not a lone wolf operation. Kerry's boat ran in tandem with other Swiftboats who were anywhere from 10 to a couple of dozen yards away, rather like World War II aircraft using formations to protect one another in combat. So the crews and commanders of other boats during Kerry's operations were witnesses all right. They kept a keen eye on anything another boat was doing, right or wrong—particularly since the mistakes of another boat could threaten their own survival. And boat commanders like Kerry, rather than enlisted crew members of his or any other crew, were more likely to have the best understanding of how the mission was being performed by another commander.

"The entire advertisement, therefore, is an inflammatory, outrageous lie"… and should stations run it anyway…"your station is responsible for the false and libelous charges made by this sponsor." Remarkable. On the face of the simple facts recited above, Elias and Sandler may have written the first legal letter in campaign history that actually commits the violations it charges its target with… making "false and libelous charges." It also raises a clear question of tortious interference with existing and proposed contracts between Swiftvets and the stations they had lined up to run the ads.


THEN THERE ARE THE "chilling effect" First Amendment violations of Swiftvets' perfectly ordinary 527 conduct in using its donors' funds to make its point of view heard without supporting a particular candidate. Ironically the real question is, who do Elias and Sandler represent? Who retained them? From their signatures as General Counsel it appears that both are working on behalf of and being paid by the taxpayer-funded Kerry campaign

But to do what? To threaten television stations that they may be sued for libel, purely on the basis of Kerry campaign assertions of false statements by individuals who are likely lack actual malice and were certainly in a position to have relevant opinions, if fallible memories, of events that happened 35 years ago? This is long before Kerry had any professional association with the Democratic Party. Let's assume Elias and Sandler are absolutely correct in their assertions and there is no statute of limitations on this kind of outrageous libel (there is, and it has passed). Isn't this Kerry's personal case to prosecute, not the Democratic Party's?

What if, for example, the Democrats had decided to run commercials based on what they felt was valid information attacking Richard Nixon for getting rich by cheating his shipmates at poker on those boring supply runs in the South Pacific during his naval service 25 years earlier and perhaps running a black market operation on the side out of naval stores at various ports? Should the Republican Party have used donor money to prosecute a case that has nothing to do with Nixon's political service?

Whatever the truth of the Swiftvets charges, they are a credible organization and their members were certainly in a position to have informed opinions. And in their unincorporated 527 status they are easy to sue and they are now on the record. So where are all the lawsuits against them for libel? Imagine the awards John Edwards' trial lawyer buddies can get out of an operation which, according to Al Hunt -- in one of his most embarrassingly often wrong but never in doubt rants, is "significantly funded and directed by Texas fatcats and political operatives."

In the New Republic yesterday, a naif named Kenneth Baer begs the Democratic Party to commence a major lawsuit against the Swiftvets for libel, lèse majesté, whatever. And given the sloppy work Elias and Sandler have done so far, that would be the answer to the Swiftvets' prayers. Wait till those expedited depositions start to leak -- forget the trial. Baer was a speechwriter for Al Gore. He runs "a Democratic consulting firm." The GOP should be so lucky as to have him gain influence.

In the meantime, Dick Morris, John McCain, Bill O'Reilly and others should stop twittering about how rude and crass and dishonorable and counterproductive it is to even explore such nasty possibilities in public and take a look at the charges and supporting documentation brought forth by the Swiftvets. Does it matter whether they are funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, George Soros, or The Tooth Fairy? What does matter in a close presidential election is if there is significant evidence that some or all of the Vietnam service Kerry has elected to make the center of his campaign to move from "war hero" to "war president" is a tissue of lies.

And it is time for the press to look into the charges brought by the Swiftvets. The Swiftvets have depositions, phone numbers, on the record statements, and for all of the innuendo from the Kerry apparatchiks, not one of the Swiftvets has enjoyed a fancy hotel room paid for by the Bush campaign, much less gone on a campaign tour with the candidate. It is easy to see what the nine Kerry crew members are getting out of their 15 minutes of fame. But what's in it for the 254 Swiftvets? It is important to answer that question in considering their charges.


Thomas Lipscomb was the chairman of the New York Vietnam Veterans' Leadership Program which worked to develop employment of heavily minority area veterans. He is the founder of Times Books.

[maryz]

Remember - of all the people who served in Vietnam, only Rassmann is allowed to have an opinion.

Right! Did you catch his op ed piece in the WSJ, I think, last week? I didn't (couldn't) read the whole thing, but one line caught my eye: he said the swift vets didn't understand how you bond with someone you served with!!!

[LibLieSlayer]

Pardon my language please, but Ruck Fassman!

LLS

[blanknoone]

He is probably grateful for Kerry pulling him out of the water after his boat hit a mine

Whether your 'his' refers to Kerry or Rassman, in both cases it is wrong. If the majority of the people present are to be believed, that is the Swift vets, A different boat hit a mine (#3) and Kerry tried to high tail it out of there so fast that Rassman fell straight off the back of the boat due to the acceleration. The other boats present picked up ALL of the crewman from the boat that hit the mine (without taking fire) and Kerry only managed to get back in time to help out the one guy that he himself put in the water.

[Condor51]

And Jim, YOU'RE becoming "irritating".

Ya know, maybe it's time that Jim Rassmann, sign off on HIS SF 180! Or even show his DD-214?

NOTE: I have never, EVER disrespected a 'Snake-Eater" before, but I'm starting to have my doubts about this guy - and I really hate to say that.

But after all, do we know that this person is really 'the' Lt Jim Rassmann, 1st Special Forces, 5th Special Forces Group?!? It's not like Kerry hasn't associated with phony 'war heroes' before.

just a thought.......

[hobson]

hmmmm Iowa. This must mean the ads are having a negative impact on Kerry in Iowa. Let's see were he goes next. Watch what they do, not what they say.

[LibLieSlayer]

According to the Justice department, they are not through investigating burglar, and he has not been cleared of ANY charges. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but grind fine.

LLS