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.
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.
He 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.
Since 1986, the Last Firebase has 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.
In December 1992, he published an article in the U.S. Veteran Dispatch headlined McCain, The Manchurian Candidate in which he questioned Sen. John McCain's behavior while a prisoner of the North Vietnamese.
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.
Sampley was named Veteran of the Year by VietNow, a national veteran's organization. He is president of Sampley Enterprises, a for profit corporation in North Carolina. |
