Kerry silver medal chronology...

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Kerry silver medal chronology...
31
Sat, 08-21-2004 - 6:24am
The following from http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_4808.shtml

By Grant K. Holcomb

Aug 21, 2004

I do not doubt the sincerity of James Rassman.



However, my own experience and review of such part of the record as is available for review convinces me that Mr. Rassman is right about then Lieutenant John Kerry pulling him out of the water but wrong about Kerry heroically saving his life.

I was an Operations Officer for 2d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment during the first Gulf War.



I was on active duty U.S. Marine Corps Officer for over a decade.

I have watched how men behave under fire.

I cross referenced multiple statements from Senator Kerry, Mr. Rassman, and several other officers and sailors who participated in the "Sea Lords" tactical operation.

I use a military "findings of fact" format presented in chronological order.

Kerry and Rassman contradict themselves several times. However, multiple versions match on several points with other first hand accounts so I weighed those findings as being the most accurate.

The closer the date of the statements to the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the more embellished and divergent Kerry's and Rassman's statements became as compared to older first hand observations.

The Kerry Presidential campaign news release dated January 17, 2004, appended to this article, represents the most divergent, carefully crafted, and falsified account of the incident I was able to find.


Here are my findings:

1.) On March 13, 1969, five U.S. Navy "Swift" boats participated in operation Sea Lords in Bay Hap River and Dong Cung Canal. Sea Lords was a "sweeping" operation conducted in conjunction with U.S. Army ground forces. At the end of the operation (approximately 5 hours), the Swift boats extracted the ground troops and began exiting the river.

2.) LTJG John Kerry USN was the Officer-in-Charge of Swift boat PCF-94.

3.) 1st LT James Rassman USA was on Kerry's boat.

4.) Rassman was a Green Beret and was not trained in U.S. Navy Swift boat operations.

5.) Rassman was a passenger on Kerry's boat and did not serve with Kerry as a crewman.

6.) Rassman did not command or have "his own" Swift boat.

7.) Swift boats do not operate independently and the commanders and crews of the other Swift boats in Kerry's Swift boat squadron had direct and daily first hand observation of his conduct and actions.

8.) Shortly after the Swift boats started their exit of the river, Swift boat PCF-3 was hit by a command detonated mine. The entire crew was wounded and two crew members were thrown into the water. Rassman was not in this boat. Only one mine explosion was observed.

9.) Kerry's Swift boat was on the opposite side of the waterway from where Swift boat PCF-3 was damaged by the mine.

10.) Kerry had his driver speed away from the incident site hitting something in the river. This collision resulted in an injury to Kerry's right arm. At that time, supposedly responding to a bow gun being jammed, Rassman was heading to the bow and was subsequently knocked out of Kerry's boat.

11.) Three of the Swift boats remained at the scene with the damaged Swift boat PCF-3. Kerry's Swift boat accelerated away leaving Rassman in the water.

12.) Rassman spent a significant amount of his time in the water intentionally submerged, holding his breath in an attempt to evade what he thought was enemy fire.

13.) After the mine explosion, the Swift boats provided suppression fire against both shorelines in anticipation of an ambush. It is a sound and proven tactical decision to go on the offense against an ambush. Turning and running only exposes your back to the enemy presenting them with a much better target. Running from an ambush without firing also allows the enemy to easily establish accurate weapons fire. Kerry and his driver knew this.

14.) The commanders of four of the Swift boats state that they were not receiving enemy fire after the mine explosion.

15.) The weapons fire heard by Rassman was from the twin 50 caliber weapons being fired by the Swift boats, not enemy fire. Rassman assumed that such a significant amount of weapons fire coming from the Swift boats must be in response to enemy fire. The lack of any bullet holes in any of the five Swift boats following the incident presents reliable forensic evidence that there was no enemy weapons fire. Also, none of the personnel involved in the incident received any bullet wounds during the incident. In a waterway less than a football field wide, if the enemy on both sides of the river were in covered positions with clear fields of fire, Rassman and many others would be dead.

16.) Kerry returned to the scene and picked up Rassman at the same time another Swift boat approached Rassman for an attempted pick up. Rassman stated in an interview with Los Angeles Times on 3/13/04 that Kerry pulled him into the boat using his good arm.

17.) Rassman wrote the recommendation that resulted in Kerry receiving a medal.

18.) Rassman, as an assistant administrative officer with the responsibility for writing awards and decorations for his Green Beret unit, recommended that Kerry receive a Silver Star. Rassman believed then, as he does now, that he was actually under enemy fire. The officers in charge of the other Swift boats have presented affidavits to the contrary. Why Rassman was on Kerry's boat and why were they together on an earlier occasion when Kerry threw a hand grenade into a rice bin are unclear.

19.) An official statement from an officer is rarely questioned. The U.S. Navy chain of command at the time of the incident acted in good faith on Rassman's recommendation for a medal. However, the U.S. Navy issued Kerry a Bronze Star instead of a Silver Star.

20.) An act of heroism is defined as going "above and beyond the call of duty". It was Kerry's duty to pick up Rassman when he fell out of Kerry's boat, not an act of heroism. Kerry could have been charged for dereliction of duty if he had not done so. If the U.S. Navy higher chain of command knew that there was no enemy weapons fire, the medal would not have been awarded.

21.) Rassman is mistaken about Kerry "saving his life". Swift boat PCF-51 picked up the other men in the water from Swift boat PCF-3 and could have also picked up Rassman as well.

22.) If Kerry's medical records are ever produced, they should show that Kerry was not wounded by enemy fire during this incident.

If this incident is scrutinized, Kerry's "band of brothers" will collapse and, in turn, so will the artificial foundation of Kerry's presidential campaign.

As a child I asked my WWII Marine Corps veteran father about the scars on his body. It was not until I became a Marine that I realized they were bullet wounds. I found a box of his medals and had to use an Encyclopedia to find out what a Purple Heart, Silver Star, and Bronze Star were.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 7:17pm
Rassman said he recalls bullets hitting the water around him whenever he came up, & of course that would be about every 2 minutes. Someone else said the only bullets being fired were ours towards the shoreline, but if that were true, none of them would hit the water around Rassman.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 7:22pm
Do you have a link to that? I've only seen him say that he worried about being run over.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 9:40pm
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005460

You're welcome, last time I asked you for a link, you blew me off, rudely.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 10:40pm
And another witness;

Until now, eyewitness evidence supporting Kerry's version had come only from his own crewmen. But yesterday, The (Washington)Post independently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor of either camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. "There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river," said Wayne D. Langhofer, who manned a machine gun aboard PCF-43, the boat that was directly behind Kerry's.

Langhofer said he distinctly remembered the "clack, clack, clack" of enemy AK-47s, as well as muzzle flashes from the riverbanks. Langhofer, who now works at a Kansas gunpowder plant, said he was approached several months ago by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but declined their requests to speak out against Kerry.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 11:54pm

Thanks for the link. You're right Rassman did mention enemy fire, but reading that again,but it doesn't make sense that all the fire was directed at him instead of the swiftboats which weren't hit at all.


"The next major problem I have is you need to understand this is a 75-yard-wide canal. These boats were sitting there, the four boats, stable, totally there for an hour-and-a-half trying to save the three boat.
Nobody was wounded. There is no bullet hole in any boat. There is no damage of any kind."

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Mon, 08-23-2004 - 12:01am
I read in one of these reports that there were bullet holes in at least one boat. Not going to go look for another link. The last link was not in my favorites, I did have to search for it.

Why wouldn't they shoot at Rassman?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Mon, 08-23-2004 - 3:54am
AHH!!

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Mon, 08-23-2004 - 10:45am
<<I read in one of these reports that there were bullet holes in at least one boat. Not going to go look for another link. The last link was not in my favorites, I did have to search for it.

Why wouldn't they shoot at Rassman?>>


The 3 bullet holes that were found had already been accounted for in a report a few days earlier. All the enemy fire would not have been exclusively directed at Rassmann.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 10:44am
Well Rassman originally said that he was a passenger on PCF 11 (Kerry's boat) when in fact he was aboard PCF 3 (the one that hit the mine). He may have some of his facts a little mixed up as it probably shocked the hell out of him, and it did happen 34 years ago.

I don't doubt that it happened, but since there are several versions of what happened that day going around, it is hard to say what the truth is.

Kerry even changed his story to say that he got his boat out of there while the other boats stayed to pick up the remaining survivors. Who knows what really happened.

We need a time machine.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 10:45am
If there was enemy fire, I doubt that they were targeting Rassman as from 75 yards, in a slight fog, it would be almost impossible to see his head bobbing in the water, especially when there were four large Swiftboats to attract the attention of the enemy fire.