I hope I have this right, but the guy Kerry was suppose to have saved "from the enemy" said he hadn't heard from Kerry for 35 years until one day he called him. I saw him interviewed on TV.
Where did you hear he kept in touch with them? It seems as though Kerry would be "too good" for the unwashed left overs from his youth.
You are correct. Rassman, a Green Beret and passenger on Kerry's boat, was not a crewman, i.e., one of the Band of Brothers. It would be interesting to learn the true circumstance of how they got together.
Where did you hear he kept in touch with them? It seems as though Kerry would be "too good" for the unwashed left overs from his youth
I remember reading it in the Boston Globe series on Kerry's life and elsewhere. Here is one report about them that seems to indicate that 1996 was the first real use of the swift boat crew, but Kerry used veterans in earlier campaigns
"For the band of brothers' dozen or so core members--including most of the two swift boat crews Kerry commanded in Vietnam--down time was hard to come by last week. Betting that his buddies' war stories will help shore up his national security credentials, Kerry enlisted them in a daily blitzkrieg of interviews, speeches, and photo ops. But while their appearance on the national stage may be new, the band of brothers has actually been 20 years in the making.
The seed for the concept was planted in 1984, during Kerry's first Senate bid, when his main primary rival, Rep. Jim Shannon, took him to task for protesting the Vietnam War. When Kerry demanded an apology, Shannon refused, saying, "That dog won't hunt." With a week to go before the primary, a group of Vietnam vets from Massachusetts barnstormed the state in Kerry's defense, helping him. He barely eked out the win--but he's been winning ever since.
All for one. Heirs to the so-called dog hunters, the band of brothers was born during Kerry's 1996 re-election bid, when he faced popular Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. A couple of weeks before Election Day, a Boston Globe columnist suggested that Kerry's role in a 1969 Vietnam firefight--for which he won the Silver Star--might have constituted a war crime. A Kerry friend tracked down five of his 1969 crewmates--none of whom had spoken to Kerry or to one another since Vietnam--and flew them to Boston. "John saved our lives, and we saved his," says former crewmate Drew Whitlow. "If you get one of us in trouble, we're going to come after you." It was just what Kerry needed. "These veterans beat back the charges," says Rob Gray, Weld's 1996 spokesman. "We couldn't change the subject back to what we wanted to talk about."
I remember that interview from the primaries exactly as you do.
I don't think Kerry has had to use all these guys before. Maybe someone from MA can tell us if he campaigned as a vet there? I bet he had PIs out finding these people and sweet-talked them into a last *adventure*. Now the fun is turning sour.
How does a GB get onto a Naval Coastal Division? I am a dumb civilian, so it just sounded strange to me. Did Rassman have some sort of military specialty that was required and not supplied by the Navy?
Rassman looked ill last night while being refuted by the former commander. He kept saying:"Why make a big deal over something that happened 30 years ago." And he reiterated the day's talking point: the Navy gave him (F'n) those medals, so they must be legit.
I think I read that for that 1st PH, Kerry had to go up the chain of command to someone in Saigon to get it signed. He's always undertood how to pull strings.