Ted Sampley - The Vietnam Veteran Kerry Hates the Most

Lifted from http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjoh...om/sampbio.htm

Ted Sampley is publisher/writer of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch and has
been since 1986. Over those years, millions of copies of the U.S.
Veteran Dispatch and other POW/MIA related materials have been given
away free to the public, most of which have been critical of the U.S.
government's handling of the POW/MIA issue.

Because the U.S. Veteran Dispatch does not sell advertising, the free
newspaper and other POW/MIA related materials are paid for with money
earned from the sale of military and veteran related pins, patches,
t-shirts, POW/MIA bracelets, etc.

Sampley joined the Army in 1963 when he was seventeen years old. He
went through Basic Training, Advanced Infantry Training and Airborne
School.

In June 1964, he was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade on the
island of Okinawa.

On May 5,1965, Sampley was deployed to Vietnam with the 173rd, where
he served in a combat unit until April 1966. He participated in combat
operations in the Iron Triangle, War Zone D, Ben Cat, the Ho Bo Woods
and other areas of South Vietnam.

In 1969, after being trained as a Green Beret, Sampley was reassigned
to 5th Special Forces Group, Vietnam.

In Vietnam, Staff Sergeant Sampley served in the B-36 Mike Force, as a
company commander of a CIDG company, operating mostly along the
Cambodian border.

During that year of combat service, Sampley was awarded four Bronze
Stars, the Army Commendation Medal and the Vietnamese Cross of
Gallantry.

In 1970, Sampley was reassigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group at
Fort Bragg where he continued his military training.

Sampley's training in the Army included Operations and Intelligence,
methods of prisoner of war interrogation, escape and evasion training,
guerrilla warfare training, understanding, the Viet Cong
infrastructure, High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachuting and he
had a working knowledge of two languages, Arabic and Japanese.

In Special Forces, (1968) Sampley was one of a handful of American
soldiers chosen to attend the British Jungle Warfare School in
Malaysia.. Sampley was trained for eight weeks by British, Australian
and New Zealand instructors in the "art of jungle warfare," including
methods of visually tracking humans in the jungle.

While in Malaysia Sampley was required to wear British uniform because
the British did not want to publicize that they were training U.S.
soldiers to fight in Vietnam.

From 1971 to 1973,. Sampley worked during his off-duty time as a
volunteer for Americans Who Care, a POW/MIA group in Fayetteville,
N.C., that was lobbing for the safe return of all U.S. POWs held by
the communists in North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

After 10 years of service, Sampley left the Army with a Honorable
Discharge in 1973.

In 1983, after he became aware that Hanoi had not released all living
American POWs in 1973, Sampley became re-involved as a POW/MIA
activist demanding for the U.S. government to put more pressure on
Hanoi to either release the men or explain what happened to them.

He has led many demonstrations in Washington, D.C demanding that both
the U.S. and Vietnamese governments account for the U.S. servicemen
known to have been alive in captivity but never released.

Sampley was honored for "Exemplary Service To Veterans" by the
Washington, D.C. based National Vietnam Veterans Coalition on May 6,
1985, in New York at the Coalition's Leadership Breakfast.

On April 17, 1988, the mayor of Kinston, North Carolina, gave special
recognition to Sampley for an "excellent job and continued interest in
and service to the handicapped."

In October of 1988, Sampley led a group of activists into communist
Laos, where they handed out leaflets offering a reward for missing
U.S. servicemen. Two of the group were captured by the communists and
held for 41 days. Sampley was detained by Thai authorities for
crossing back into Thailand from Laos.

Sampley is publisher/editor/writer of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch. He
was appointed chairman of the non-profit Last Firebase Veterans
Archives Project in 1988. That group created one of the largest
collections of privately held POW/MIA files. The chairmanship of the
Last Firebase is a non-paid position.

From 1986 to 2003, the Last Firebase kept a non-stop, manned 24-hour
vigil for POW's and MIAs in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Sampley testified in 1991 before the Senate Select Committee of
POW/MIA Affairs.

The Lenoir County Chamber of Commerce gave Sampley special recognition
in December, 1991 for his help in the restoration of Kinston's
historic downtown.

North Carolina's Raleigh News and Observer honored Sampley on
September 28, 1992 as their "Tar Heel of the Week and member of a very
special group of North Carolinians who have contributed their time,
skills and talents toward making North Carolina a truly great state
and a wonderful place to live."

After conducting many hours of research, Sampley found compelling
evidence proving that the remains buried in the tomb of the Vietnam
War Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery belonged to Air
Force Lt. Michael Blassie. It was evidence that Sampley said the
Pentagon had deliberately overlooked.

Sampley first made the Unknown Soldier's identity public in the July
1994 issue of the U.S. Veteran Dispatch.

Five years later (1999), the U.S. government under pressure from CBS
television finally used a DNA sample and confirmed that the Vietnam
War Unknown Soldier was indeed Lt. Blassie.

A military honor guard returned Lt. Blassie's remains to his family in
St. Louis, Missouri where he was buried again with full military
honors in a national cemetery.

In February 1996, Sampley was nominated for the Kinston Free Press
"Citizen of the Year" award. The Free Press cited Sampley for the
"good work" he was doing in the community.

Sampley was named Veteran of the Year by VietNow, a national veteran's
organization, and Citizen of the Year by the Wheat Swamp Ruitan Club
of Lenoir County. He is a founding member of the National Alliance of
POW/MIA Families and is one of their annual guest speakers.

Sampley is currently heading up two community service programs in
Kinston: The building of a 158 foot replica of Kinston's Civil War
ironclad CSS Neuse and the National Walk of Honor for Veterans. He is
president of Sampley Enterprises, a for profit corporation in North
Carolina and co-owns Kinston's Broken Eagle Eatery .