Pulling Rabbit Out of the Hat: John Kerry and the Jim Rassmann Story
by The Bandit
May 22, 2004
On March 13, 1969, Jim Rassmann, a U.S. Army Green Beret, was aboard PCF-35 - one of three swift boats traveling together on the Bai Hap River - when one, the PCF-3, struck a mine and immediately began to take incoming fire from the river bank. Kerry's boat at some point turned around and headed toward the damaged vessel when a second mine exploded nearby, throwing him against a bulkhead, causing an contusion to his right arm. The explosion also tossed Rassmann out of a third vessel, the PCF-35. With Rassmann in the water, it is alleged that enemy gunners started taking shots at him in the water.
According to the description of the events from John Kerry for President web site, Kerry maneuvered his boat up to the PCF-3 to give assistance, when someone noticed Rassmann, by this time a couple of hundred yards away, ducking bullets, and shouted man overboard. With enemy fire still coming from both sides of the river, Kerry's boat headed down river to fetch Rassmann out of the water.
According to Kerry's Bronze Star citation, Lt.(jg) Kerry "from an exposed position on the bow" and with his "his arm bleeding and in pain" pulled Rassmann aboard his boat.
In an LA Times article by Tomas Alex Tizon, told the story of how 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.”
In a press release by John Kerry for president, titled "Kerry Reunites with Fellow Veteran in Iowa," dated January 17, 2004 stated: "Kerry was hit in the arm." Question here is: hit in the arm with what?
To make matters worst, Time Magazine writer, Mitch Frank described it this way in a article that appeared May 3, 2004:
Why did Kerry get it? On the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969, a mine exploded under Kerry's boat, driving shrapnel into his arm and knocking Green Beret Jim Rassmann overboard. Despite heavy fire, Kerry turned the boat around and pulled Rassmann back on board with his good arm.
Problem with all the above is Kerry was never wounded in the arm. His medical record for the incident states:
"In firefight approx. 3 hours ago, pt was a) thrown against bulkhead sustaining injury (contusion) to R forearm."
A "contusion" is a fancy word for a bruise - and to be classified as a wound, Kerry would have had to suffered a break in the skin, which clearly would not have been described as a contusion by any physician. Why does his Bronze Star describe his "arm bleeding and in pain" when clearly there is no medical evidence to support such a description? Who in the hell investigated and wrote this very misleading and false citation description?
What we do know is that, James Rassmann, is the one who did recommend Lt.(jg) Kerry for a Silver Star (sound familiar? Adm. Zumwalt wanted to put Kerry in for a Navy Cross), for which ended up being reduced to a Bronze Star with "V" for valor. The reason for the "V" is because it is alleged Kerry was exposed to hostile fire from the shore - something I am not so sure of. This incident happened on a river and about time Kerry caught up with Rassmann; Rassmann would already have been hundreds of yards downstream from where they were ambushed. Kerry's own description of the events places Rassmann several hundred yards down stream once it was known that they had a man in the river - making it difficult to impossible for the ambushers to continue firing at Rassmann or Kerry since by time Kerry reached him they would have been even further down stream.
Interesting enough, the after-action report released by the Kerry campaign for March 13, 1969 estimates the distance between the enemy fire and PCF-3 at 5,000 meters. If this is true, it is no wonder Lt.(jg) Kerry was so brave to expose himself in pulling Jim Rassmann out of the water.
In my mind, I don't understand all the fuss; you have a man overboard what are you suppose to do, leave him? I got this feeling that like Kerry's first undeserved and fraudulent purple heart, and how Kerry's official web site personal bio describes a tiny shrapnel wound as a "bullet to the leg," this story is terribly "sexed up" and misleading.
Then there is Rassmann's own cute explanations for what lead him to contacting Kerry's campaign.
Transcript of JohnKerry.com Chat With Douglas Brinkley, Author of "Tour of Duty - John Kerry and the Vietnam War" described how Rassmann came across the story of his own rescue:
Douglas Brinkley: Jim Rassmann walked into a bookstore in LA, and saw my book "Tour of Duty" in front of the store....he looked in the index and saw his name, and that's what made him decide to call the Kerry campaign, and come to Iowa to campaign on JK's behalf.In a telephone interview from Iowa with the Eugene Register-Guard, Jim Rassmann describes it differently: "As chance would have it, I opened it at random to the page that talked about this particular incident [being pulled from the water by Kerry]," he recalled. "The memories were suddenly overwhelming. I got all choked up," he said. Interesting that Jim Rassmann would open the book to the one random page that describes how Kerry had pulled him out of the water with a wounded arm! Douglas Brinkley's version makes more sense to me.
But wait, it gets better, Jim Rassmann, goes to pains to paint himself as a loyal registered Republican, suggesting he has no partisan motives (another Richard Clarke phony Republican claim.)
Rassmann was quoted by the Associated Press in a January 20th article, saying he has followed Kerry's Senate career, especially his time on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the POW/MIA Committee that worked to re-establish ties with Vietnam
"It put him head and shoulders above the rest of the candidates, and I include Wesley Clark in that," Rassmann said.
Rassmann went on to say: "If he had done a lousy job in the Senate and I thought his ideas were ridiculous, I wouldn't have called him. I might have bought him dinner, but I wouldn't have called him."
This isn't the kind of praise one would expect from a long time Republican to be handing out to a northwest liberal like John Kerry, who has very little to show for eighteen years in the US Senate besides maybe two wealthy wives. I get the sense that the entire Jim Rassmann story is a clever scripted story.
John Hurley, Kerry's veterans affairs coordinator, told Rassmann by phone "We've been looking for you," Rassmann recalls Hurley saying. The next day, Jan. 17, Rassmann was on a 5:45 a.m. flight to Des Moines, and within hours was reunited with Kerry in a TV moment that Hurley described as "monumental" for Kerry personally and politically. As campaign strategy, it couldn't have been better scripted. Was it scripted?
Just scripted enough so that Sen. Kerry could truthfully say he hasn't met Rassmann in over 30 years. But of course, this doesn't rule out any Kerry operatives who well may have already found Jim Rassmann long before he made his famous call to help on 16th of January. Just two months prior, on November 11, 2003, the Kerry campaign had announced they were actively seeking to find, Jim Rassmann, and if anyone had any leads in locating him to contact research@johnkerry.com.
The Kerry campaign wants us to believe that after weeks of activity searching for Jim Rassmann, Rassmann eight weeks later goes into a bookstore - picks up 'Tour of Duty' at the checkout counter, randomly flips to the exact page that describes Kerry's actions in rescuing him - calls the Kerry campaign days later and tells them he will campaign for them and is on a flight to Iowa 24 hours later. And all these coincidences just happens to lead to Jim Rassmann arriving just in time for the Iowa caucuses the next day!
Does anyone really believe this story is nothing less than fortunate coincidences for Sen. Kerry?
Sen. Kerry may well have tipped his hand recently at a campaign stop in Portland, Oregon, when he said, "God didn't just give me the privilege of pulling a life [Jim Rassmann] out of the water, I pulled a vote out of the water." What Kerry really was saying is, "I pulled a rabbit out of the hat." In Sen. Kerry's run to win votes, it's a safe bet to say we haven't heard the last of this well scripted, Jim Rassmann story.
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