...The six-member crew was stunned and shaken by the blast; the boat was running free....
..."It was running wide open — we were all running wide open, trying to get out of there," he said....
"We went right back to the 3 boat and he (Thurlow) went back on the boat," he said. "We got the 3 boat off the sandbar, got a boat tied to each side of it and down the river we went."
These bolded points don't seem to match the exhaustively researched story and graphics featured in the big Washington Post article.
The rabidly anti-Bush WPost gives a pretty fair account of the March 13 incident, if you can ignore a totally imaginary, "unidentified" second explosion the newspaper invents to cover Kerry's butt.
The graphic shows Kerry in panic flight going up the river away from the group--the only one who bailed--and he ran 3 miles along the opposite bank from the mine explosion--dumping Rassmann along the way. Kerry bruised his shoulder/arm in his reckless flight--but will get a Purple Heart for yet another self-inflicted injury.
But right now, the key point in this graphic history is the one thing that is not mentioned at all in the highly focused detail of the action--the Washington Post's illustrated history contains NO DESCRIPTION--NO MENTION WHATSOEVER OF A HOSTILE FIREFIGHT.
The River, The Mission, The Ambush
Washington Post ^ | 8-21-2004 | Thorp, Spirito, Kirkman
Posted on 08/22/2004 1:48:37 AM EDT by XHogPilot
The Mission, The River, The Ambush. On March 13, 1969, John F. Kerry participated in the mission that has become a centerpiece of his campaign for the presidency- and his account has been disputed by some fellow Swift boat veterans. The dispute focuses on when and how Kerry was injured on the mission, and whether the force of five Swift boats came under Vietcong fire after one was hit by a mine on the Bay Hap River. Here are the events of the mission and ambush, according to eyewitness accounts and U.S. Navy reports: 
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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