Veterans Day was approaching. I had just finished and been moved by E. B. Sledge’s book With the Old Breed, a marine’s experiences on Peleliu and Okinawa. I had also watched Ken Burns’s documentary about World War II. I wanted our Democratic Club to honor veterans living in our town’s vicinity. Here is the announcement I had the Siuslaw News print of what I subsequently planned.
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Jim Rassmann and Arnie Roblan To Speak at the Bromley Room Nov. 3
Local Vietnam War veteran Jim Rassmann and House District 9 State Representative Arnie Roblan will be guest speakers of the Florence Area Democratic Club Nov. 3 in the Siuslaw Library’s Bromley Room. The event begins at 12 noon.
A former Special Forces officer and retired Los Angeles sheriff’s lieutenant, Jim Rassmann received national recognition for his active support of Senator John Kerry’s candidacy for President in 2004. It was Lieutenant Kerry who saved Mr. Rassmann’s life in Vietnam, hauling him out of river water and onto the deck of his swift boat while both were receiving enemy fire.
Mr. Rassmann will likely address the stalemate in Iraq, White House policy, veterans affairs, and the candidacy of Jeff Merkley to replace Gordon Smith as Oregon’s junior U.S. Senator. He is the chair of the Veterans for Jeff Merkley campaign.
Arnie Roblan is serving his second term as our (District 9) state representative. This past session Representative Roblan was the House Deputy Majority Whip. Mr. Roblan will speak on behalf of Representative Merkley, the current State Speaker of the House.
Both men will answer questions.
The Florence Area Democratic Club anticipates a large audience. It will conduct its regular business following the speakers’ presentation. Nonmembers may leave after the speakers have concluded.
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This announcement was printed on Saturday, October 27,a week before the event, instead of Wednesday, Oct. 31, as requested. The turnout was disappointing, about 27 people. We had put out 50 chairs.
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Based on an audio recording I made, I sent a synopsis of Rassmann’s and Roblan’s remarks to club members who did not attend. The following information is taken from that synopsis.
Jim Rassmann’s Thoughts about Combat Soldiers during World War II
He had read a Time-Life book about the war and was astounded at the great loss of life on Tarawa. He had discovered that a urologist friend (Jim’s parents’ age) had been a Marine physician on Tarawa. He knew the man because of their shared interests in growing orchids. The man had landed on the beach in the second wave and was jumped on in a bomb crater by a Japanese officer during a bonsai charge. After playing dead, the doctor struck the Japanese officer unconscious with a rusted pistol. He claimed to have captured the first of only 17 prisoners taken during the Tarawa campaign.
Jim and his physician friend talked about how they had unwound from their experiences upon their separation from the service.
The physician had served all the way through Okinawa. His six week journey to San Francisco by ship gave him time to adjust. He believed that this was done purposely, that it provided a needy safety valve.
Rassmamn came home immediately by plane and came to feel he needed more time during transport.
Rassmann’s Comments about George W. Bush’s Conduct of the Iraq War
We are making supposed progress because we are losing fewer people. We are counting fewer dead bodies every morning. The administration is going to go to great lengths to tell people that the surge is working and Bush’s plan is wonderful. In truth, the sectarian killings have been very successful. Many have been killed; many have run off. Those with the ability to do so have left the country. In the spring we will have to bring some 25,000 troops home. The Mahdi army will start doing its thing. Al Qaeda and other insurgents will plant more wired artillery shells and explosively formed projectiles. The insurgents are biding their time until we reduce our numbers. Every time Bush says something about how well we are doing, “I want to vomit.” It isn’t true.
Our country has joined a select group of nations that utilize torture. “I find it extremely embarrassing.” Those that have experienced waterboarding to see what it is like say it takes no more than a liter of water to make you think you are going to drown. You may lose consciousness. People not strapped down sometimes break bones thrashing about. Their air supply is being cut off; they are, in fact, being drowned.
“We’ve got somebody in office right now who is trying to follow the lead of Richard Nixon: I am the President. What I say goes.” “That’s wrong.” A lot of people in other countries “are appalled by what’s going on in the United States. George Bush knows it. He doesn’t care. Dick Cheney certainly doesn’t care.”
“What can I do about it? I have endorsed Jeff Merkley. I am chairing the veterans committee for his campaign. I am doing everything I can to help him win the Senate seat for Oregon to unseat Gordon Smith. Gordon Smith will do anything and say anything, in my opinion, to retain his Senate seat. He will do anything” to have people believe that he is a moderate conservative. I am not one of those people
“If you read [the biography] John Adams, you will learn that this sort of thing was going on in the 1700s when this country started.” When you have people dissent, “disequilibrium occurs and people get upset.”
Our army is being affected. “We have people leaving the military as soon as they possibly can.” An officer who has a minimum of eight years of service can be called back into the service until he is 56.
According to an NPR report, in some units serving in Iraq the divorce rate is at 70%. The suicide rate is high as well. Rassmann knows a young Army JAG (Judge Advocate General) officer that served at Abu Ghraib prison. He is suffering from PTSD, “not because he was in combat but because of what he had to deal with. Those little pictures we saw that were so horrendous on the news were not the worst things that went on there.”
“Like Vietnam in 1973 and on, the mid-grade, company grade officers [are] leaving in droves. The younger NCOs [are] leaving in droves.” Here are some statements in a letter of resignation a copy of which was sent to Jim from a serving Marine Corp major and friend.
“I have spent ten years as a Marine Corp officer including two tours of duty in Iraq.”
“On both occasions I volunteered for active duty and willingly answered my nation’s call.”
“I greatly value my Marine Corps’ experience and deeply appreciated the opportunity to service my county.”
“Over the previous six years the current administration has suspended habeas corpus, engaged in torture, conducted rendition flights to other countries, and instituted warrantless wire-tapping.”
“I believe these actions collectively constitute an erosion of our civil liberties and are threatening the integrity of our country.”
“I am deeply troubled by the unchecked growth of power within the executive branch and the lack of transparency and accountability that has resulted.”
“The war in Iraq is a result of this. It’s been prosecuted incompetently, yet no one has been held accountable.”
“This lack of accountability and the willing politicalizaton of the military by the administration has destroyed my faith in the chain of command.”
“When I swore my commissioning oath as a Marine Corp officer, I swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I took and continue to take that oath seriously.”
“It is because of this oath I cannot in good conscience continue to serve in the military executing the policy initiatives of the current administration.”
Jim warned him that “they may come get you.” His friend responded, “That’s okay.” Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice states you will not bad-mouth the President, the Vice President, the Congress, and assorted other people. “There are people leaving the military just because of this and I believe based on [being in] the same situation I would probably do the same.”
“I think we are in big big trouble, and I think that [if] all of us who believe in the Constitution [and] believe in fair play, don’t do our jobs [and] work on our friends, neighbors, and relatives, we are going to see more of the same.”
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I wrote this letter after the Rassmann and Roblan presentation and after having watched the Ken Burns documentary about World War II.
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The Ken Burns documentary about World War II drives home the point that servicemen gave up their lives in great number to defeat German and Japanese autocracy. Being on the front lines was a ghastly experience that too few survived.
Those service people that have followed -- in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq -- have suffered equally horrific circumstances.
We who have not served in the armed forces or served in times of peace can never identify. A broad chasm separates us from the combat veteran. We can only intellectualize what he has experienced: the fear of immediate death; the horror of obliteration of flesh, bones, and sinew; the dehumanization of conscience; the numbing constancy of endless combat; the inevitable realization that the longer a combat soldier survives the greater are the odds that he will die.
To do justice to those who risked all we should stand at the edge of that great gulf and learn. Ken Burns’s documentary helps. So does E. B. Sledge’s book With the Old Breed, a marine’s experiences on Peleliu and Okinawa. Hearing veterans like Jim Rassmann speak about the present conflict should be mandatory.
There are those in public office that refuse to stand at the edge of this separation of experience, that view Americans in uniform as expendable instruments of ideological, unilateralist policy. Standing with them are the malevolent, the deluded, and the disinterested. Apart from them are the rest of us. For the sake of our country, we, the latter, must heed our veterans’ experiences and work yet harder to have our voices heard!
Printed November 7, 2007, in the Siuslaw News
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