[blanknoone]

I love the "Were they out of dog-flight range"?

But other than his unsubstantiated claim of a mine blowing Rassmann off his about (as opposed to his rapid accelerations away from his brothers in need), has there been any evidence of a mine damaging Kerry's boat? Surely a mine close enough to dogapault VC would do enough damage that it would have to go in for repairs.

[silent_jonny]

On March 13, 1969, when a mine exploded under one of Kerry's fellow Swift Boats, the boat was so damaged that it was rendered immobile and the other boats had to circle-the-wagons to protect it. Lt. Kerry didn't know this, apparently, because he hit the gas and was half a mile down the river before he realized he was alone (Forrest Gump: "...and being alone was a very bad thing."), so he turned his boat around and the hero rescued Rassman. Now what I'm wondering is, if a mine exploded under Kerry's boat ("exploded hard", as the senator said, hard enough to catapult a dog into the air), then why wasn't HIS boat rendered immobile? Seems like if that were true, we would have heard about it before now--and not in a dog story context.