Theodore Lane Sampley (July 17, 1946 – May 12, 2009) was an American Vietnam War veteran and activist. He primarily advocated for those servicemen still considered missing in action or prisoners of war (POW-MIA) as of the end of hostilities in 1975. A staunch political conservative, he also ran for local political office several times. He is credited with the research that identified Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie as the Vietnam fatality buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and for his role in organizing the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle event in Washington. In Kinston, North Carolina, where he lived for much of his adult life, he was known for his local civic activism, most notably his effort to build a replica of the Confederate ironclad CSS Neuse, the only full-size replica of a Confederate ironclad, in the city's downtown.
A native of Wilmington, North Carolina, he enlisted in the Army in 1963. Two years later, he was deployed to Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, where he did a year's tour of duty as a combat infantryman. Afterwards he became a Green Beret and served another tour leading and training a Civilian Irregular Defense Group along the Cambodian border, earning four Bronze Stars, an Army Commendation Medal and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. After returning to Fort Bragg to train other Special Forces soldiers for duty in Vietnam, he left the Army in 1973 with the rank of staff sergeant.
Following his honorable discharge, Sampley worked in journalism and then settled in Kinston, North Carolina, where he opened a craft store selling ceramics, an art he had learned from local artisans in his off-duty time while stationed on Okinawa at the beginning of his military career. In the early 1980s he began his activism, after learning that not all the POWs and MIAs in Vietnam at the end of the war had been accounted for, joining groups demanding that the U.S. put pressure on the Vietnamese government. He started and published U.S. Veterans Dispatch, a newspaper primarily devoted to the issue.
Sampley soon became known as an outspoken activist for his cause, using confrontational tactics similar to those used by antiwar protestors. He was particularly hostile to Senators John Kerry and John McCain, both of whom had served in Vietnam and were members of the 1993 Senate select committee which found that no POWs or MIAs remained alive in Southeast Asia. McCain himself, whom Sampley frequently accused of having been brainwashed by the Vietnamese during his years as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, said Sampley was "one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter"; Sampley was convicted of assault after a fight with McCain's chief of staff. He was criticized further for using the POW-MIA cause for his aggrandizement and personal enrichment; sculptor Frederick Hart successfully sued Sampley for unpaid royalties over his unauthorized use of Hart's The Three Soldiers on T-shirts he sold near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall.
1946–1973: Early life and military career
Theodore Lane Sampley was born on July 17, 1946, in Wilmington, North Carolina. After growing up on a tobacco farm there, he enlisted in the Army in 1963, aged 17. Following basic training, Sampley went through advanced infantry training and then Airborne School. The next year he was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade, then stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa. While there, when off-duty, he visited local potters and began to study ceramics.
In 1965, the 173rd was deployed to Vietnam. Sampley served a year's tour of duty as a combat infantryman, recalling later that he had known very little about the growing conflict at that time. He was then promoted to sergeant and spent a second tour commanding a B-36 MIKE Force unit of indigenous minority population along the Cambodian border, part of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group program. In that capacity he earned four Bronze Stars, the Army Commendation Medal and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.
Sampley wrote in his online biography that he was one of a few Americans sent to train at the British Army's Jungle Warfare School in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The two-month course was taught by instructors from the Australian and New Zealand armies as well as the British. He and the other Americans wore British uniforms so the British Army could better keep it secret that they were training Americans there.
Returning to the U.S., Sampley became a Green Beret assigned to first the 3d, then the 6th Special Forces Group. He trained in, and trained others, in military subjects from guerilla warfare to High Altitude Low Opening parachute jumping. He also learned to speak Arabic and Japanese fluently.
Part of the Special Forces curriculum was training in how to be a prisoner of war (POW), an issue Sampley said later he did not know much about until then. During the early 1970s, he began volunteering with Americans Who Care, a group formed in nearby Fayetteville to raise awareness about the issue. When the war ended, with US POWs released and returning home, Sampley believed, like many other Americans, that they had all been accounted for. Having attained the rank of staff sergeant, he was honorably discharged in 1973.
1973–1983: Post-military career
After returning to civilian life, Sampley recalled, "I just kind of withdrew back into myself, like a lot of vets did." He worked in journalism, both for a local weekly newspaper and a television station. His interest in pottery, first piqued during his time on Okinawa, returned, and after building his own kiln decided to try making and selling his own pottery. He started his business, The Potter's Wheel, and within two years had produced and sold 90,000 pieces, some of which were featured in a 1980 Country Living pictorial on rural potters in North Carolina.
Sampley also became active in local politics. He served on the New Hanover County Republican committee. In 1976, 1978 and 1980 he ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner.
Sampley's political efforts were not without controversy. During his 1976 campaign, the county's sheriff sued him for slander. Three years later, he tried to have the sheriff arrested. The county's Republican chairman would later refer to him as "a millstone around our necks".
In 1982, during a relative's court case, Sampley got into an altercation in the courthouse. He was arrested, and ultimately convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer. Years later, he expressed regret for the incident. "Some of those guys were my friends", he said.
In 1982, Sampley was one of the many Vietnam veterans who went to Washington for the dedication ceremonies of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall, a memorial whose design he had criticized. At the ceremonies he heard many other veterans express doubt that all the POWs and other servicemembers officially considered missing in action from Vietnam-era combat operations in Southeast Asia had been accounted for as the government had claimed since 1975, particularly those they had known personally. Sampley concluded from those discussions that the government knew more than it was publicly disclosing, and decided to get the answers.
"When I came back from the war, I had trouble with authority figures", he recalled in 2001. "I heard people talking about how it was time to get over the war, I thought, How? When you've seen human beings all around you reduced to rotting flesh, you can't just flip a switch and turn things off."
After returning home, he resumed his activism on behalf of prisoners of war and those servicemembers still listed as missing in action (POW/MIA) in Vietnam. He, along with some families of the POW/MIAs unaccounted for at the end of the war, believed not only that the Vietnamese government knew more than it had publicly acknowledged about the fate of some of those men, but that some had survived the end of the war and were even still alive in captivity. The National League of POW/MIA Families (NLF), an organization founded during the war by Sybil Stockdale, wife of James Stockdale, the highest-ranking U.S. Navy POW during the war, took on a public role lobbying on this issue, and Sampley joined those efforts.