"For Kerry, Bonds Forged With Wartime Crews Hold Strong"
nytimes.com
By JOHN KIFNER
Published: February 24, 2004
Four thin-hulled swift boats came down the Bay Hap River at the end of another bloody operation. Their mission was to transport American commandos, ethnic Chinese Nung mercenaries and the reluctant South Vietnamese forces known as Ruff Puffs on raids in the Vietcong-controlled Mekong Delta.
Suddenly a mine went off under the lead boat, recalled Del Sandusky, who was a quartermaster first class on another of the boats.
"The boat just flew up in the air," Mr. Sandusky said in a recent telephone interview. "The gunner's mate was tossed off still holding his guns. A firefight started. There were bullets, rockets flying through the air, mortars."
Michael Medeiros, manning the .50-caliber machine gun on the fantail of the same boat, shouted, "Man overboard!"
A Green Beret lieutenant, Jim Rassman, was in the river, ducking underwater as bullets from both shores slapped the river.
"We turned around with the engines screaming against each other — one full astern, the other full forward — and then charged the several hundred yards back into the ambush," Mr. Sandusky's Navy skipper, Lt. j.g. John Kerry, wrote in his war diary. "Everyone on board must have been firing to keep the sniper heads down."
Another explosion had injured Mr. Kerry's right arm. But he ran forward to the bow, reached over with his good arm and pulled Lieutenant Rassman — weighted down with wet clothes, equipment and heavy boots — to safety.
"It was a brave thing to do," Mr. Sandusky said. "We had been in firefights with John before. We already knew he has unfailing instincts. We owe him our lives, and he owes us his. We were a boat crew. We were tight."
<MUCH more in article>
That article says it all. Save that article for anytime someone questions Kerry's service and his anti-war activities! |
