LAT: Repaying a Big Debt to Lt. Kerry (Green Beret he saved)

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Repaying a Big Debt to Lt. Kerry (Green Beret he saved)


March 13, 2004

THE RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Repaying a Big Debt to Lt. Kerry
A former Green Beret saved 35 years ago by the young senator-to-be is happy to help him now.

By Tomas Alex Tizon, Times Staff Writer


FLORENCE, Ore. — The eyes still get watery 35 years later, and Jim Rassmann — former Green Beret, retired California cop — doesn't want anybody to see. He turns away or uses his beefy hands to cover up.

But he gets through it, recalling in vivid detail the day, March 13, 1969, when John F. Kerry snatched him out of a muddy brown river in Vietnam and saved him from a watery end.

The story has been told often since January, when the two men reunited in Des Moines, just two days before the Iowa primary. Their emotional reunion has been described as a turning point in Kerry's quest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Rassmann, a registered Republican, held the audience rapt that night with the dramatic tale of his rescue. The two men embraced, the cameras rolled and Rassmann in a single moment became a prime-time voucher for Kerry's combat heroism and a symbol of the senator's support among Vietnam War veterans.

Since then, Rassmann, 56, has volunteered on the campaign trail for Kerry, with brief visits home to his wife, Julie, and their four-acre homestead here on the Oregon coast....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnamvet13mar13,1,4247569.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[flpoljunkie]

1. Thanks so much for posting this, DeepModem Mom.

It is excellent--actually, quite moving. Read every word.