Ted Sampley; Vietnam veteran was activist for POWs, MIAs

[Forkboy]

WASHINGTON - Ted Sampley, a Vietnam War veteran and former member of the Green Berets who was a persistent activist for American prisoners of war and missing servicemen, and who later led smear campaigns against presidential candidates, died Tuesday at the VA Medical Center in Durham, N.C., of complications from heart surgery. He was 62.
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But Mr. Sampley often took his advocacy to extreme lengths and combined a malicious streak with a flair for outrageous publicity stunts. He shouted down a president during a speech, chained himself to the White House fence, and once delivered bamboo cages, filled with hunger strikers, to the lawn of a presidential chief of staff. He also went to jail for assaulting an aide to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

An equal-opportunity political offender, Mr. Sampley lodged dubious charges that attacked the patriotism of officials from both parties. In 2004, he formed an organization called Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry, to oppose the presidential campaign of Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. He supported, but was not formally affiliated with, another anti-Kerry movement, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Mr. Sampley called Kerry "Hanoi John" and distributed through his website a photograph - later shown to be faked - of Kerry and Jane Fonda, the actress and antiwar activist who had visited Hanoi during the war. Last year, he used his website to denounce "Sen. Barack Hussein Obama Jr." and his father's Muslim heritage.

But Mr. Sampley reserved his most venomous attacks for McCain, a Navy pilot and fellow Vietnam veteran who spent five years as a prisoner of war. Mr. Sampley believed many missing soldiers and airmen were still alive and was upset that McCain did not champion an effort to bring them home. As a result, Mr. Sampley dug through McCain's record, using innuendo to make claims that ranged from far-fetched to scurrilous to slanderous.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2009/05/16/ted_sampley_vietnam_veteran_was_activist_for_pows_mias/

[bluestateguy]

1. He never apologized for his vicious smears of Obama and Kerry

That's regrettable.

I cannot offer condolences at this time.

[Forkboy]

2. I have none for him either.

A great example of someone who believes in a worthy cause but is a complete douchenozzle about it.

[MarjorieG]

3. Kept hopes alive by bilking survivors; not so honorable.

[Historic NY]

4. the flames just got brighter.