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This is the best MSM story so far on the SBVs. Dobbs is still giving Kerry the benefit of the doubt, but the seams are starting to show. This story compares the SBVs version of events to the official Naval record and "Tour of Duty," but it leaves out Kerry's varying accounts in between, such as the congressional record quote you posted. Note that in this version, the "mine" hitting PCF is not the cause of Rassmans fall.

Rassman also seems to have inadvertently made a mockery of Kerry's all-important third Purple, the one he used to get out of Nam. It's clear that the rice injury was a self-inflicted joke. That leaves Kerry with a "contusion" on which to hang his trip home. Let's see the medic report surrounding this event.

I wish someone would look into the circumstances surrounding the "Band of Brothers" return home. I suspect that Kerry helped them get out early as well, which would help explain their loyalty.

Rassman is also the one that recommended a silver star but Kerry only got the bronze and he also asserts that the other boats had already fled the scene when Kerry fished him out

August 10, 2004

Jim Rassman, the Kerry campaign mainstay who reminds everyone that the young lieutenant saved his life under fire, attempts to return the favor in today's Wall Street Journal On Line. Rassman attempts to do this with a handy bit of misdirection and a few ad hominem attacks on the Swiftvets, in whose company he spent a few days back in 1969:

While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonated under another swift boat. Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river, and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John's swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.
When I surfaced, all the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire from both banks. To avoid the incoming fire, I repeatedly swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, attempting to make it to the north bank of the river. I thought I would die right there. The odds were against me avoiding the incoming fire and, even if I made it out of the river, I thought I'd be captured and executed. Kerry must have seen me in the water and directed his driver, Del Sandusky, to turn the boat around. Kerry's boat ran up to me in the water, bow on, and I was able to climb up a cargo net to the lip of the deck. But, because I was nearly upside down, I couldn't make it over the edge of the deck. This left me hanging out in the open, a perfect target. John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat, came out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us from the jungle, and pulled me aboard.
For his actions that day, I recommended John for the Silver Star, our country's third highest award for bravery under fire. I learned only this past January that the Navy awarded John the Bronze Star with Combat V for his valor.

I wish someone would look into the circumstances surrounding the "Band of Brothers" return home. I suspect that Kerry helped them get out early as well, which would help explain their loyalty.

Hi again .. I found it.

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061603.shtml <-- Boston Globe online - no registration required, long read, worth the time)

Here's an interesting tidbit from the Globe article ...

" Kerry's early departure meant that he was leaving behind a crew that had suffered through many bloody battles with him. Worried that crew members would be killed, he arranged for them to receive a safer assignment. When one crew member, Medeiros, tried to stay, Kerry "came and talked to me and said, `I really would like you to go. ... I'd like to know you are safe, or safer."'"