Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (525826)	1/18/2004 4:55:59 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

On Trail, Kerry Reminded of Wartime Rescue By Ceci Connolly Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 18, 2004; Page A06 DES MOINES, Jan. 17 -- Thirty-five years after a rescue that earned him the Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) interrupted campaigning Saturday for an unexpected reunion with the Green Beret he pulled from the murky waters of the Bay Hap River in Vietnam. "I don't believe it," Kerry said to Jim Rassmann, squeezing the man's pink face in his hands. "It's amazing to see you." Mobbed by a throng of cameras, the two embraced. It was the first time they had seen each other since March 13, 1969. "I wrote you in '84, and you never wrote back," Rassmann said, sobbing. "I never got it," Kerry replied, teary-eyed. Less than three hours earlier, Kerry had been engaged in a final blitz of campaigning before Monday's Iowa caucuses. Suddenly he was transported back three decades to a harrowing day in Vietnam when his overloaded Swift boat came under attack. "He could have been shot and killed at any time, and so could I," Rassmann said, describing the rescue to a group of activists here. "So I figure I owe this man my life." Rassmann, a 21-year-old Army lieutenant at the time, was hitching a ride to the village of Cai Nuoc when a mine exploded, tossing him off Kerry's Swift boat. "I started swimming underwater," he said, describing an ordeal that Kerry said he was not fully aware of until that moment. "The next thing I knew, I was coming up for air." He reached for the cargo net on the boat and Lt. Kerry, his arm bleeding from the blast, helped lift Rassmann. "John pulled me over," Rassmann, 56, said. "Had he not, there is no question in my mind I would have fallen back into the river." Rassmann, a registered Republican and retired Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, said he felt compelled to come and support Kerry's candidacy after following his career from afar since 1984. He called Friday morning and was on a plane from his home in Oregon on Saturday morning. "I haven't talked to this guy since 1969, March 1969," he said. From his formal campaign announcement in September, Kerry has capitalized on his status as a decorated war hero, staging events with veterans and offering himself as the most experienced Democrat on foreign policy. But Saturday's emotional reunion left Kerry dazed and stammering. "I, I, I am overwhelmed by just the memories that come back," he said. "Seeing this fellow here is amazing. . . . This is a brave, unbelievably patriotic man." "I never thought I'd ever see the guy again," Kerry said. Kerry gave Rassmann a ride on his campaign bus. As they huddled in the back, Kerry peppered him with questions. "What were we doing that day?" Kerry asked. "Do you remember?"

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (525826)	1/18/2004 9:28:45 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Funny, I bet Kerry did not invite this hero: John Kerry's War Record By Michael Benge FrontPageMagazine.com As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go unmentioned -- and I don't mean his $75 haircuts. When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They remembered Mr. Kerry as the antiwar activist who testified before Congress during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals. The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the US Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag. Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an antiwar activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later admitted they weren't his. Now they are displayed on his office wall. Long after he changed sides in congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with Hanoi. At the same time, his cousin C. Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam - an odd coincidence. As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans fought and died. The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone. On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity. Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial. As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an antiwar activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam. Michael Benge is a Foreign Service officer and a former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973)