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: 06-17-2004
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 10:53am

Publishing all the original reports would shed some light on it.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2003
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 11:00am
If Bush was not AWOL where are his complete records?

Questions about Bush's Guard service unanswered

By Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard,

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — At a time when Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has come under fire from a group of retired naval officers who say he lied about his combat record in Vietnam, questions about President Bush's 1968-73 stint in the Texas Air National Guard remain unresolved:

Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?

• What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?

• Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years?

The White House has released hundreds of pages of records, but the files released so far haven't answered those questions. Since the documents were released in February, at least a half-dozen news organizations, including USA TODAY, have filed new requests for Bush's military records under the Freedom of Information Act.

In an e-mail to USA TODAY last week, presidential spokesman Dan Bartlett said: "The president has authorized the release of his records and we are complying with all requests. Some are taking longer than others, but all will be addressed."

Past military service and qualifications to be commander in chief have become a central theme in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Questions about Bush's record predate the current campaign. The apparent gap in his Guard service first surfaced before the 2000 election, when The Boston Globe reported that Texas Guard commanders were unable to account for Bush's whereabouts from May 1972 to April 1973.

Bush has not said what he did in the Guard during that period. Aside from a statement by a former Alabama Air Guard officer who said he saw Bush report for duty there in the fall of 1972, the only evidence he was at Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Alabama was a record of a dental exam on Jan. 6, 1973, at the base.

Bush said in a TV interview in February that he would make all his military records available. That month, the White House released more than 400 pages of Bush military records, including some duplicates, and said the documents were a complete catalog of his personnel files.

But some documents still have not been made public. The White House did not release Bush's medical records from his Guard files but allowed a group of reporters who cover the White House to review them for 20 minutes. They found nothing unusual. Kerry released some of his military records earlier this year. He has also declined to release his complete medical records but showed them to reporters as Bush did.

Since February, the White House has banned all Guard and military commanders outside the Pentagon from commenting on Bush's records or service. Requests for information must go to the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Act office.

The Pentagon last week responded to a 4-month-old request from USA TODAY for additional records from Bush's files by sending another copy of documents that were released by the White House in February. The documents do not address the unexplained year in Bush's Guard service or his decision to stop flying.

The Associated Press filed a lawsuit this summer requesting copies of Bush's military records stored in a Texas archive on microfilm. It sought information that might explain why Bush did not take his flight physical and whether he showed up for duty in Alabama in the fall of 1972, AP spokesman John Stokes said.

http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-23-bush-service_x.htm?csp=1

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2003
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 11:03am
Rassman stayed under water to avoid gun fire. There is nothing inconsistent about his story and nothing contrived. I have met Jim Rassmann and heard personally his account of what happened that day.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2003
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 11:22am
Rassmann was 21 at the time, a Special Forces lieutenant in charge of a company of American and Chinese fighters. On that day, they traveled on a convoy of five patrol boats led by the 25-year-old Kerry, a Navy lieutenant -- and they were on the run, being chased down the Bay Hap River by enemy soldiers firing guns and rockets.

The group had already lost one soldier that day. As they sped down the river, one boat was blown out of the water, and then another. An explosion wounded Kerry in the arm and threw Rassmann into the river. Rassmann dove to the bottom to avoid being run over by the other boats. When he surfaced, he saw the convoy had gone ahead.

Viet Cong snipers fired at him, and Rassmann submerged over and over to avoid being hit. The bullets came from both banks, and Rassmann had nowhere to go. He began thinking his time had come, but the fifth time he came up for air, he saw the convoy had turned around. Kerry had ordered the boats back to pick up the man overboard.

Kerry’s boat, under heavy fire, sidled up to the struggling soldier. Rassmann tried to scramble up a cargo net at the bow but was too exhausted to make it all the way. He clung to the net as bullets whizzed past him.

“Next thing I knew, John came out in the middle of all this,” Rassmann says. “I couldn’t believe it. He was going to get killed. He ran to the edge, reached over with his good arm and pulled me over the lip.”

http://www.detnews.com/2004/politics/0403/17/politics-90756.htm

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2003
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 11:29am
All of John Kerry's Naval Recors have been published for a few months now. here are some pertinent links and there is a wealth of links available on each page linked here.

John Kerry's Official Naval Records

http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/military_records.html

The Command History for Coastal Division 11 for 1969

http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/command_history.html

Presidential Unit Citation

http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Presidential_Unit_Citation.pdf

John Kerry's After-Action Combat Reports

http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/combat_reports.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2003
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 12:51pm
Holcomb was not there, his summation is MEANINGLESS!
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 1:03pm

Hello ogoddess!


Welcome to the board!

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

Visit My Website!

Email me!

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 2:47pm
I think all that will do is show what each party is saying today.

I dont think that any reports will actually show the undisputable facts of the events in question. Just my opinion on this one.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-09-2003
Tue, 08-24-2004 - 3:31pm
Thanks Miffy!

I'm a long time Kerry supporter, FYI!

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-24-2004
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 4:01am
"I think all that will do is show what each party is saying today.

I dont think that any reports will actually show the undisputable facts of the events in question. Just my opinion on this one."

I agree, I don't believe all the trying to look into past records will prove things one way or another. I think this should be let go, people see things different sometimes, and none of us were there to try to say what happened. And I don't believe in trying to damn anyone because their supposed past "may not" be true. There are people who agree with both sides. Maybe they all truly believe what they are saying. There are alot of things that happen that appear to go one way according to one person, yet appear totally different according to another. That doesn't make one a liar, just means they don't remember the event the same way.

I just don't feel right about digging into someones military records because something a soldier claims to be true "maybe" isn't true according to people that were in other boats that were over 50yards away from the questioned event. Running for president or not, I just don't like it.