Another 'Kerryism'

[CARLHAYDEN]

John Kerry's stories about Viet Nam have been constantly changing over the years.

Its interesting to see when HIS OWN WORDS of a few years ago are compared with his recent statements (makes it hard to slime the source which disagrees with Kerry's recent statements, which has been the left's approach to the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth).  Well, here's another one:


In a eulogy entered into the Congressional Record six years ago, John Kerry gave a conflicting version of the now-famous incident during the Vietnam War in which he rescued Special Forces officer Jim Rassman.

But in a eulogy for crew member Thomas Belodeau, which Kerry entered into the Congressional Record in 1998, the senator said Rassman fell overboard when the swiftboat made an abrupt turn on the Bay Hap River, not as a result of the mine blast.

"There was the time we were carrying special forces up a river and a mine exploded under our boat sending it 2 feet into the air. We were receiving incoming rocket and small arms fire and Tommy was returning fire with his M–60 machine gun when it literally broke apart in his hands.
He was left holding the pieces unable to fire back while one of the Green Berets [Rassman] walked along the edge of the boat to get Tommy another M–60. As he was doing so, the boat made a high speed turn to starboard and the Green Beret kept going -- straight into the river."

That apparent conflict in Kerry's own retelling of events adds to already existing confusion over whether Rassman was on Kerry's boat or on another of the five boats on that mission. For example, Douglas Brinkley, author of Kerry's authorized war biography "Tour of Duty," wrote in an article published by American History magazine that Rassman was on another boat, PCF-3, when he was blown overboard by a mine. But Rassman and the Kerry campaign say the Special Forces officer was on Kerry's boat.

The eulogy was unearthed from the Congressional Record in a report by the weblog BeldarBlog.









The question of which boat Rassman was on has not been resolved by the Kerry campaign, he said, but the eulogy is the first evidence of an admission that it was the acceleration of Kerry's boat that caused Rassman to fall off.

Kerry's campaign has had to concede that PCF-3, at the very least, could not have left the scene because it was dead in the water from the mine blast.