Gary S. Champe: taking stolen valor to the grave
Mary at POW Network sends us information on Gary S. Champe, whose headstone above is in the Indiana Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Madison, IN. According to his obituary, he had three tours of Vietnam and a stint as a POW;
Gary S. Champe, 59, of Dillsboro passed away Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at the University Hospital in Cincinnati. He was born at Knoxville, Tennessee on March 12, 1949 the son of Allen and Doris Case Champe. He was married to Beverly Chipman on May 17, 2003 and she survives. Other survivors include his mother Doris Champe of Dillsboro. Mr. Champe was US Army Retired having served 25 years in the military. He was a former POW and had served three tours of duty in Vietnam. He received three Commendation Medals, two Achievement Medals, and the Good Conduct Medal.
His records tell quite a different story, though. It’s pretty tough to be a prisoner of the Vietnamese when he wasn’t in the Army until 1981 (American presence in Vietnam ended in May 1975) and the obit says 25 years of service, but the math doesn’t add up;
And his assignments;
Yeah, I don’t see three tours of Vietnam in there anywhere. But at least they got the Arcom right;
So who wants to tell his family that the headstone is wrong and that he’s been lying to them all these years? But, Stolen Valor is a victimless crime…well, victimless unless you consider the family’s last memory of the dearly departed is that of a liar.
Category: Phony soldiers
Since Stolen Valor was declared unconstitutional, I think the family should fork over the money spent in etching the word “Vietnam” in the FREE VA issued headstone. If it costs 3 pennies so be it. Another grave to piss on.
Funny how they pulled out of a line Company to Battalion and and then to a personnel clerk as 1/69 Armor (Bandits!) as they prepared and deployed to Desert Shield/Storm. That’s what I would do as a commander, always pull you best fighters out of the turrets and make the a PAC clerk.
Something stinks here. How’s about some old guys conjecture. He was a fuck up…not enough to run UCMJ but generally a malingerer and low level performer. So they pull him out of a tank and put him in a non MTOE slot (AR Co’s Clerks come out of hide on the J Series MTOE… typically he was the 1SG’s driver). So they figure we’re going to war and of course that means a frantic scramble to stabilize and qualify crews (its a gunnery thing) and of course the CSM is doing the by name scrub looking for guys like Chump hanging out as the company gopher.
So the smart 1SG would beat the CSM to the punch and offer up chump like the great American he is. But our friend Chump can’t even hack it in the TOC which is pretty hard to do… maybe he didn’t have a clearance, perhaps riding a profile, who knows? So they send him to the PAC where he will fit right in screwing up soldiers’ pay and personnel actions. I’ll give you 5-1 odds he was the mail run guy.
Not saying this happened this way… just a hypothesis.
I knew the man, I know for sure that he did not spend three tours in Viet Nam, I know that he did leave the company and went to the Batt S-3.
I know you have to spend at least 20 years in the Service to retire. That copy of his DD214 is missing ten years, and thee are some other flaws on it also.
Not always true. Medical retirements due to serious in-line-of-duty injuries or other disqualifying medical conditions can be processed with any amount of service. And during the early and mid 1990s, temporary early retirement authority (TERA) was in effect; retirement at 15 years was authorized. If this guy had delayed entry program (DEP) time that isn’t correctly reflected on his FOIA reply above, that could be the remainder of the required 15 years.
I’m guessing he’s a TERA/15 year or medical retiree, and had been “rockin’ the lie” pretty much ever since.
My dad is buried in that cemetery >:(
Agree with Beretverde and Elric…but maybe the guy might have had prior service during the Viet Nam period then a break. in that case he might have two DD 214s. I have two, one from Sep 67 when I was discharged for commissioning and another from June 1993 when I retired. Still no way he could have three tours in RVN.
He told me that he had prior service, we served in the same unit in Germany.
After the US left Vietnam in April 1975, US citizens were probhibited from going to Vietnam. In the 1980s, I ran into guys who said they were there. When I asked “when?” sometimes they were correct about dates and had accurate locations, but I knew one who said he was stationed there in 1978. I asked him how he avoided being arrested by the Vietnamese police. He didn’t like that.
The restriction on US citizens was lifted in the 1990s.
29 or 30 MARCH Nineteen Seventy-THREE — almost all U.S. Forces ordered out of The Republic Of Vietnam.
Please correct me, if I err.
I really want The Truth .
NO, I was NOT there in RVN, in 1973 when U.S. FORCES left .
I left in 1969 .
I’m sorry, I didn’t make that clear. Did NOT mean to do that. The US officially left April 30, 1975, as the Viet Cong were driving their tanks into Saigon. There is that classic abandonment image of the helicopter on the roof of the US embassy with people lined up to get on board. All those south Vietnamese who couldn’t make it out ahead of were left trying to climb the embassy gates. Seeing that on TV after all the things that had happened before that is still mind-boggling to me.
The troops left in August, 1972, but there were still some advisors left behind. US military involvement officially ended in August 1973.
Glad you survived it, Dr. B.
Elric-I hear what you are saying, but if I am reading that correctly he moved into a clerk slot on March 1st 1991. That was just after most of the fighting in the gulf was over (not completely). Could be he effed up royally during the fighting and was removed from the line.
He was not in any of the Gulf War stuff.
Having looked at that again, it appears that he never left Germany, please disregard above.
No. 8 Ex-PH2: Thanks for your response. I trust you won’t take offense, if I perform a correction (big sincere smile to a fellow fighter). You write: “The US officially left April 30, 1975, as the Viet Cong were driving their tanks into Saigon.” — This is WRONG !! US FORCES HAD LEFT VIETNAM — TWO FULL YEARS EARLIER !! “Agreement on a cease-fire for all of Vietnam was reached rapidly upon resumption of the Paris negotiations in JANUARY OF 1973. Article Four, by far the shortest and clearest clause in the agreement, stated flatly: “The United States will not continue its military involvement or intervene in the internal affairs of South Vietnam.” For the first time since advisors began going along on operations in 1960, AMERICANS WERE NOT FIGHTING IN VIETNAM.” President Richard Nixon held to his promise — he withdrew US FORCES in a careful plan: “. . . the American exit had not been tied to the cease-fire . . . the United States withdrawal had continued according to plan. GEN ABRAMS had departed in JUNE 1972 to succeed GEN WESTMORELAND as Army Chief Of Staff, being replaced in Saigon by GEN FRED C. WEYAND . . . By JULY [1972] fewer than 49,000 AMERICANS HAD REMAINED; by SEPTEMBER [1972] the total had dipped to UNDER 39,000 and was still dropping. By the end of the year [1972], it had reached 24,000 — ABOUT THE STRENGTH on hand WHEN THE BUILD-UP HAD BEGUN IN 1965. THE LAST COMBAT BATTALION HAD GONE HOME IN AUGUST [1972].” “The Vietnam War — or, to be more precise, the U. S. military commitment to it — just faded away in 1972. . . . TWELVE LONG YEARS TO THE MONTH [JAN 1961 to JAN 1973] after President Kennedy had called on Americans to respond to the summons of the trumpet, the central issue of the debate in the United States was settled: direct AMERICAN MILITARY INVOLVEMENT on the ground in Asia HAD ENDED.” “. . . withdrawal of American combat forces ENDING IN 1973.” (The last US Forces left Vietnam on… Read more »
No. 8 Ex-PH2:
“The troops left in August, 1972, but there were still some advisors left behind. US military involvement officially ended in August 1973.”
Thanks — But I wanted to fill in the background context, thus my lengthy comment, for the thousands of readers of THIS AIN’T HELL .
I disagree.
The “Iceman” was still hanging around doing who knows what.
Dr. Brett, the military pulled out in 1973, yes, but there were still American at the US embassy in Saigon, as both of us pointed out, so the US didn’t officially depart until 4/30/75. I think there may still have been a few Marines or soldiers at the embassy right up to the end, and there were US Navy ships waiting off the coast of south Vietnam to take passengers. The decks were so crowded that helicopters were pitched overboard into the South China Sea. They’re probably still there, too, if you want to do salvage on them. The Viet Cong drove their tanks into Saigon, shelling as they went, on 4/30/75. They blew out the fence of the US embassy as the last chopper was leaving. This was all shot on tape as it happened and relayed to US news services and Agence France Presse as soon as reporters could get out. During Gerald Ford’s term in office and Jimmy Carter’s administration, there were regular encounters with “boat people”, Vietnamese refugees fleeing the communist re-education imposed by them on the government of Le Duan, who succeeded Uncle Ho when he died in September 1969. And I have personally believed, for a very long time, that if the US had given Ho Chi Minh the aid that he requested after World War II, there might never have been the French Indochina War or the Vietnam War. The French paid the ransom demanded by Ho Chi Minh for the release of their POWS after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Pres. Truman, on the other hand, never answered Ho Chi Minh’s request for support and aid, because Ho was a Communist and the Cold War was in full swing. If people hadn’t been quite so paranoid and stubborn, things might have turned out differently. And if you ever find an old copy of “History of the Vietnam War” (I think that’s the right title), there’s a photo at the front of people at a protest at the Pentagon in 1967, during the break-in. I was at Quarters K, across from the… Read more »
A few years back was reading the obits and discovered a fellow who was listed as receiving 2ea Silver Stars and 2ea PH. Claimed VN service. The dates of birth/age made it totally impossible. Of all things he was an attorney with citations on his office walls for many years. Contacted his church/minister, family, and newspaper. The press actually did the right thing and printed a retraction and corrected obit. This was before the headstone had been ordered.
If no one wants to contact the VA and/or family I’ll gladly do it. Either way the tombstone needs to be replaced ASAP. Screw him.
Embassy guards don’t really count when talking about a U.S. presence. Otherwise, they’d say we have a military presence in every country that has a U.S. embassy.
As I understand it, it took an act of Congress to get those last Marines a Vietnam service ribbon, since the war ended for us in 1973.
I would like to know where the missing ten years are that are not on his DD214
No. 13 — The computer links I provided cover what you wrote.
I cannot agree about HO-HO MINIMUM (ho chi minh) —
He founded the French Communist Party in the 1930’s,
formally studied Lenin/Marx in MOSCOW, etc.
Thus, we should NOT have supported him.
We should have backed President Diem to the hilt, but AMB LODGE (Republican) and President JF KENNEDY — had The President MURDERED.
More study is required for most, as the volumes of LIES are everywhere.
I stand by my few good books (as with “A FEW GOOD MEN”).
No. 15 RandyB:
Thank you.
No. 14 1stCavRVN11B:
Thanks, 1ST CAVALRY, VIETNAM WAR.
Hell, “we”‘ve got “sitting” (they sure as hell are incapable of standing for anything)
U.S. Congress-Critters — Senators —
who are FRAUDS AND LIARS AND VIETNAM WAR WANNABE’S — RIGHT THIS MINUTE !!
(Blumenthal, Harkin, Kerry — I hate remembering scum names —
there may be more, help me out here !!)
Ex-PH2: the “classic” photo of the Huey perched on top of a small platform on a building roof in Saigon and a staircase filled with people waiting evac, with a guy at the top playing “gatekeeper”, was NOT the US Embassy. Rather, that photo was of the evacuation of Pittman Apartment building at 22 Gia Long Street, Saigon. That building was used to house various CIA and USAID personnel working at the US embassy; it was evacuated as part of the evacuation of CIA Station Saigon. The small platform on which the Huey was perched was not a helipad, but was in fact the building’s elevator mechanical room. The Huey was flown by pilots from Air America.
That photo is often misrepresented as being a photo of the evac of the US Embassy in Saigon, but it is not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Saigon
A stint as a POW: What? Is that like being TAD to the Hanoi Hilton or In Transit Processing by way of North Viet Nam. Holy Crap!
I’m a Marine Nam vet 67-68, who worked in the Veterans Outreach program back in the 80s. I saw a lot of altered DD-214s, and listened to last survivor stories until I was about to go nuts. Impostors often claim to be last survivors of their outfit. That way, there is no one to question the truth of their story.
@18 Hondo, every news story said it was the embassy. I wasn’t there, what did I know? I just went on what the reporters said. Durn! Thank you for enlightening me. I do appreciate the truth.
@16 – Dr. B, I agree with you about uncle Ho. I was just speculating that a lot of damage might have been avoided if Ho had got aid from the US. After all, he wouldn’t let the French POWs go until he got ransom money for them.
It’s ALWAYS about $$$$$. Always. Never anything else.
Ex-PH2: That’s what you get when you believe the MSM . . . . (smile)
Seriously, I didn’t know the deal until recently either. It’s yet another of those things that “everyone knows is the truth because it’s in the papers” that turns out not to be true.
His obit lists his awards as three commendation medals, two achievement, and a good conduct. Where are the rest of the awards he would have earned doing all this crap in 25 years? Having known him I can tell you for a fact that he was a lying piece of crap who told anyone who questioned him that everything he did was still classified and not allowed to be talked about.
I was married to the man for a brief period of time. I know firsthand what a lying,conniving bastard he was. Telling lies and fabricating stories came naturally to him, just like breathing. And no, these are not the ravings of a scorned woman. I got out of this farce of a marriage because I saw his true colors in a timely manner (thank God!)and I assure you that his colors had nothing to do with honor and valor. He was going around saying that he was a green beret, a paratrooper and that his knee injury came from jumping out of too many aircrafts. Yeah … right.
I saw all of his army stuff and I assure you that nowhere did I see anything about Vietnam, green beret, paratrooper or anything else of that nature. Sure, he had a couple of medals but nothing out of the ordinary.
Although it is not usual for me to speak ill of the dead, I couldn’t in good conscience not comment on this, I have too much admiration for the honest men and women in the service who sacrifice their lives each and every day for the rest of us. Thank you.
Maybe he did sooperdooperseekritsqwirrel missions out of Al Phukt Up or Ai Ma Shi Ted?!