Past resurfaces in unusual day for Kerry
DES MOINES -- After a typical morning talking taxes and farm policy with Iowa voters, presidential candidate John F. Kerry suddenly found himself jolted nearly 35 years into the past to a defining period in his life, as a former Green Beret whom Kerry rescued under fire in Vietnam turned up in Des Moines yesterday for an emotional reunion with the Massachusetts senator.
The appearance of James Rassmann, whose rescue earned Kerry the Bronze Star Medal for bravery and his third Purple Heart, stunned Kerry, who had learned of the reunion only two hours in advance. Kerry was visibly shaken when the two men met at a community center here.
The last time they had seen each other was March 13, 1969, when Kerry, then a Navy lieutenant, commanding a swift boat damaged by a mine and his own arm bleeding, heard "man overboard." Kerry sped on the Bay Hap River through several hundred yards of gunfire and found Rassmann in the water. pulled him out because Rassmann, an Army lieutenant, could not climb onboard himself.
When Kerry, 60, and Rassmann, 56, met at dusk yesterday inside a community center, surrounded by throngs of reporters, the senator put his hands on Rassmann's cheeks and squeezed. Rassmann, a registered Republican and former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, broke down in sobs.
Kerry's eyes teared up, his lips quivering.
"I wrote you in '84, and you never wrote back," Rassmann said.
"I never got it," said Kerry, who was making his first successful run for the US Senate that year.
Speaking to reporters in the back of his campaign bus as it sped west on Interstate 80 toward the reunion, Kerry searched for words to describe his feelings after his aides sprang the news on him; they had hoped to make it a surprise, but it had the effect of throwing Kerry off stride somewhat. Some aides worried that they may have miscalculated by leaving him shaken, with the mass media covering the unusual news story just two days before the Iowa presidential caucuses.
"It's a stunning story; it's amazing. I mean, I never thought I'd ever see the guy again," Kerry said. "It's exciting to see the guy. But it's also, it's just -- boom -- it's all there."
Speaking about his yearlong campaign, he added: "This journey we're on reintroduces you to a piece of your life like that, unexpectedly.
. . . It sort of reminds you of the purpose of this and the stakes a little bit in a sense, and it connects you to the relationships that matter. . . . It's extraordinary. I'm very grateful to him for calling." Asked when he had last seen Rassmann, Kerry said: "I never saw him since. I mean, I pulled him out and we went about our business."
Rassmann, who lives on the Oregon coast with his wife and is an avid orchid farmer, first spoke by telephone with the campaign's veterans-for-Kerry organizer Friday morning, asking "to be a part of your effort," Kerry said he was told by aides. The campaign paid to fly Rassmann from Oregon to Iowa yesterday, and campaign advisers interrupted the candidate's planned schedule to have him here for the event. Kerry stayed in his seat for much of the bus ride yesterday from Davenport to Des Moines, and the bus once stopped so that he could step outside in the cold air and walk around alone for a couple of minutes.
The rescue occurred during Kerry's second tour of duty in Vietnam, when he was 25 and Rassmann was 21. Several US swift boats, including the one Kerry commanded, came under fire and hit mines. Kerry's boat hit a mine and he was slammed against a bulkhead and injured. Rassmann fell into the river, and for several minutes his absence was not noticed. Kerry ultimately swung the boat around and pulled Rassmann from the water.
"John didn't have to, but he came to the front [of the boat] under fire, the bow -- pardon me, sir, I always had a problem with Navyterminology," Rassmann said as the audience erupted in laughter. "He pulled me over. Had he not, there's no question in my mind that I would have fallen back into the river. . . . He could have been shot at any time.
"I figure I owe him my life."
Kerry replied: "Anybody would have done what I did. That is not a big deal."
Rassmann told the audience that he planned to vote for Kerry, and the two climbed onto the campaign bus last night and shared memories of that day in Vietnam before flying to Iowa City, where he held a late-night rally that drew about 800 people.
Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com. 
