Wayne Graham Gentry; phony Vietnam POW
Pat sends us his work on this Wayne Gentry fellow who, sadly passed late last year. According to his obituary, he led quite an exciting young life;
He entered the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era, and became a member of the 6th Army Security Agency, the 101st Army Airborne Rangers, Special Forces, and a top secret group, “Ghost Walkers.” He was captured twice in Vietnam and tortured as a POW until he escaped.
Actually, according to his records, the only Ghost Walking he did with ASA was at school in Fort Devens, Massachusetts where he apparently washed out and went on to be a mechanic in New Jersey. Then it looks like he was injured and he was taken as a POW by the local hospital where he cross-trained as an X-Ray special operations/Ranger technician. After he escaped, he was sent to an artillery unit in South Florida, but he was captured again and sent to another hospital where he finally escaped to an honorable/medical discharge.
So, in summation, no Vietnam, no POW, no Special Forces, no Army Security Agency, no 101st Airborne Division, no Rangers, and the only “Ghost Walking” he did was when he’d sneak out to the snackbar at Fort Dix.
Category: Phony soldiers
I like this Wayne Graham Gentry guy. I was in a similar unit known as the “Donut Walkers”. DW was a very dark unit….usually as dark os chocolate icing with chocolate sprinkles. None in our unit lasted very long, other than me. we died by the dozens.
The unit was disbanded as we couldn’t walk very far despite being well hydrated with Diet Cokes. We did invent the fridge in the sofa though…and fat jeans.
sincerely
John “Faker 6” Giduck
Diet cokes? Seriously??? RipIts could have been a game changer for you.
“Ghost Walkers”… Now, that does sound spooky.
No doubt his real records are classified, and also they burned up in the fire.
More like “Turd Walkers”.
Try dingle berry floaters. The off white appearance somethimes of these hair clinging annoying terrorist mistake them for ghost
Ghost walkers? Seriously? Were the ghosts unwilling to stay on the papers?
Don’t forget it was super top secret, rumor is he was also able to shoot lighting bolts out of his ass. But that top secret also
Obit:
“Former President of the United States….” No, that’s out.
“Former Supreme Court justice….” That might work but not with relatives and friends so that’s out, too.
“Former heavyweight champ….” No, there would have to be pics, newspaper and magazine articles, and a crushed nose,at least. Can’t use it.
“Former Army Ranger and POW…” BINGO! Wasn’t married then. There were no kids. There was that fire in St Louis and, if that doesn’t work, records are sealed! Perfect!
…Nah. MOH-winning lawyer who became Chief Justice of SCOTUS then became Pope.
Not kidding. This was the actual plot of a novel back in the 70s.
Mike
I remember that novel.
Funny you should mention “Former POTUS”, a certain halfassed excuse of a pilot/non-CPO featured here has claimed to have been the 13th POTUS. AS TO this critter, I see him as another fine example of what I think Don Shipley (SCPO, USN, Ret.) was referring to when he said “A lot of these guys will take their lies with them all the way to the grave.”.
Whenever I see this shit, it bothers me more than most phonies who are alive and well because it means either that they lied to family and friends for years or they were so lousy in life that their family had to create a new them that was worth a shit. Now, I’ll take my spot in some VA cemetery one day and I would hope that my obit says no more than this: “He was a good man.” If I can get that, I will smile eternally.
I told my wife mine should say,”Well, his ears finally stopped ringing.”
Thanks
OBAMAAnthrax Inoculations./you too huh?
This dipshit dragged his lies into his grave, and his legacy will always be that of a liar and phony…
For God’s sake, how hard is it to just tell the fucking truth ?!?!
Just think of the legacy he left his family after living a life of lies!
It seems like the only people who don’t want to be a former Vietnam POW are actual former Vietnam POWs.
He spent more time in hospitals and trying to get an MOS than he did doing any work.
I’m going to have to get on E-Bay and find a ball cap from some cool, yet little known organization and start telling stories.
I wonder what his family said when they tried to get the VA headstone with all that stuff stamped into it.
They probably said “thanks” since it doesn’t seem like they do much screening of what on there.
Great, I wonder if TAH will be blamed for his death as well?
Knowing the DRC, nothing surprises me at this point.
A likely explanation for what happened to Gentry is that he completed the Morse intercept course at Devens, but failed the background check for a TS clearance.
What’s also sort of ironic is the goofy hat in the photo, because the ASA was never officially in Viet Nam. What with being secret squirrels and all, the way it worked is that the agency’s people were assigned to various “radio research” detachments which operated under the larger umbrella of whatever unit they were assigned to.
Actually, ASA being in Vietnam was declassified at the end of the war. Different sets of orders read USASA Field Station Bien How or 175th ASA Field Station or other variations.
Now now, this is NOT the TAH that I know and love.
This gentile person has go to the great repast. He’s dead. He is no more.
I think it’s unseemly of us to talk Ill of him regardless of his past transgressions.
Now, let’s all open up your TAH hymnals and sing a song of recognition for this individuals service to our great country…..
Hymn….Hymn….Hymn, him fuck him….Ooooh Hymn….Hymn….Hymn, him fuck him….Yeaaaaa
Amen
Dude spent enough time in hospitals that he can be considered the original “broke dick”
Back in those days going to Viet Nam wasn’t the nostalgic patriotic thing to do that it is now and this guy probably had regrets and embarrassment over his lackluster career. Imagine being asked over and over again…”so you were in the Army back in the mid 60s, did you go to Viet Nam?”
I wonder about our modern day types that somehow managed to avoid serving in Iraq or Afghanistan over a 14 year old war…try explaining that 20 years from now and not feel regret or embarrassment even if the reason was legit. I see much more of this kind of thing in the future.
Yes,Sir, in about 20 years from now it would be great to talk to slick sleeve CSM(Ret) “No Slack” King and find out exactly how she managed to catch the PTSD from that hardship tour she pulled at SHAFE Headquarters in Brussels.
But I’ll have to leave that question for the younger TAH crowd. Putting in another 20 above ground may be a little optimistic.
Nope, no regret or embarrassment at all. I didn’t hide and I was never non-deployable. The Army knew where I was all them years and the fact that they didn’t think they needed me there doesn’t bother me in the least. As long as my retirement check keeps dropping the first of every month I’m a happy camper.
The mathematician/philosopher Pascal said this in the mid 1600s…it sounds like some of my ramblings.
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
Apparently societal mistruths are a centuries old tradition and not unique to a generation of sport and celebrity worshippers.
‘The more things change, the more they remain the same.’
‘Same shit, different day.’
‘Back to the future.’
‘One day you’ll look down, and see your father’s hands.’
Ah, the old hymn, hymn, fuck him. Hadn’t heard that since we sang it to Peachy Keene at the old 3rd RRU.
“Ghost Walkers” huh?
I used to always wonder where all the ghost turds camer from under our racks durning field day imspections.
Now I know, it was the ghost walkers infiltrating our barracks at night doing training exercises.
They could have cut our throata, but they shit under our racks instead.
Dang, another phony POW (I already commented about the other one above this one.)
Here’s something: Maybe these guys were such losers in life (or perceived themselves to be losers) that the only way they can explain it away is that they were POWs and that is what “broke” them?
re: ASA – if he had gone to Shemya, Sinop, Asmera or the other “premier” and “girl behind every tree” ASA assignments, would those locations have shown up on his record? He blew out of ditties, maybe he couldn’t remember the morse for “e”.
“101st Army Airborne Rangers…” That one made me snarf. Sounds like Space Shuttle Door Gunner.
The way I read it, he went to 05-H Ditty Bop school, and and completed it but was unable to pass a Top Secret clearance background check. We had no members without at least a TS clearance. We had people waiting for clearance on casual for months as the Agency grew from 6000 members to over 36000 in 1965 and the it took awhile for the backlog to work out. If you flunked out of ditty bop school you went back to the army. Lots of failed guys went to helicopter door gunner slots, or truck maintenance.
The initial enlistment for the ASA was four years, so this guy must have medically discharged as he did only three and never served in an Agency unit.
When I was going through my training at the United States Army Southeastern Signal School at Fort Gordon, Georgia, we had a guy kicked out for failing his security clearance.
But, it was during the first weeks of our training.
I don’t know what became of him, whether he was transferred to another unit, or kicked out of the Army.
Until that happened, I didn’t know that I had a “Secret” security clearance, which was required of everyone in that course, the Field Radio Relay and Carrier Equipment Operator (MOS 31 M 20) course.
Nobody ever talked about security clearances, so it took the news of that guy getting kicked out for me to learn about it.
The Army Security Agency school was also at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and when I was pulled from the Operator course to attend the Repair course (MOS 31 L 20), we marched past it every day going to and from class.
That ASA school was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by MPs.
We had one guy in our platoon who went to the ASA school for training as a teletype repairman (MOS 31 J 20).
Many years later, he would be my next door neighbor when we resided in military housing at Fort Hood, Texas.
When I was in the old Republic of Viet Nam,
there was an 8th Radio Research compound located just north of Phu Bai, on QL-1, right by the dirt road going to Camp Eagle.
It was a bunch of white, air conditioned trailers inside a chain link fenced enclosure, and the letters, “8th RR” sure made it LOOK like an “R&R” center!
I never saw any military personnel or military vehicles in that compound.
Whatever was there never showed itself outside of those beautiful, air conditioned, white, mobile homes!
Dudes 4 posers in one day, yut, Don Shipley is right they take it with them to the grave, I wonder just how many of these fudge packers are buried in ANC with bogus awards on their tombstones?
Last year I posted a website http://thearmysecurityagency.com I found and posted 65 issues of the ASA “The HALLMark” 1968-Jan 1977. Check it out. I served in Asa 1964-76 and INSCOM 1977-1987. If you remember me contact me through my web site.
79th ASA SOU Shemya 65-66 059/k 05h
6th USASAFS
330th RRC
138th Avn Company (RR)
83rd RRSOU
Det B 83rd
Det C/J 7th RRFS
USASAFS Homestead
USASAFS Sobe (Torii Station)
USAFS Misawa
372nd ASA Company (EW) DSU 25ID
138th Avn Company (EW)
USAFS Kunia
Retired in January 1987.
My enlisted MOSs: 059/K 05H 05D 98C 98G4LCMC8
Warrant Officer MOSs: 984A 988A & 982A
My first post so please be gentle (or not LOL). Just a little background first. I retired after 20 in 91. I was ASA/MI the whole time, Yup I was a REMF.
“…re: ASA – if he had gone to Shemya, Sinop, Asmera or the other “premier” and “girl behind every tree” ASA assignments, would those locations have shown up on his record? He blew out of ditties, maybe he couldn’t remember the morse for “e”….”
Richard those assignments would definitely would have been listed…..had there been any.
All the ASA MOSs required a Top Secret clearance and even the support personnel (cooks, MPs, mechanics, clerks and supply types) assigned to ASA units required a TS clearance.
The second line on his assignments should probably have read Nov 64 instead of Nov 65 (sometimes a typo is just a typo). It looks like he spend 6 months at Devens… about right to have completed the Morris Intercept course. The Morris code portion of the course could be completed while the clearance was pending.
My guess is that he was washed out because he failed the background checks (big surprise) and couldn’t get a clearance. Getting a TS clearance based on a special background investigation (SBI) is a costly, drawn out process. ASA didn’t waste those people who got a clearance and couldn’t pass the MOS course. They were generally sent to another MOS producing school (MP, cook, clerk etc) and once awarded the MOS would be assigned to ASA units for the rest of their time in service. He has no ASA assignments after Devens.
To all of you ASA alums, do you remember this? “ASA first, woman and children second.” Or “Forewarned is Cheating.” Good guys, good times.
Jonn… your commentary on this one is extremely funny! (hope we don’t get accused of “disliking” dead guys, or some such).
Maybe a certian half-assed excuse of a pilot/phony oregon Attorney/phony Florida Attorney/phony CPO will ad them to his listof “Veterans chased to self-murder by TAH”?
FUXX HIM!!
Agreed. But I was actually alluding to someone here who has a knack for popping off on other bloggers here and said I “dislike women” due to a comment I made.
Did anyone notice on his obit that he had been a car salesman? What a career choice for a career shit talker to ingest. He’s probably the one I bought the ’57 Pontiac Station Wagon from with the La Bamba dice hanging from the rear view mirror, lightening stripes on both sides, and the special “free” round turning knob on the steering wheel. Told me Elvis had been driving it when he was captured by the Viet Cong driving to Saigon. Kind of destroyed his credibility a week after buying it when I learned Elvis ALWAYS had a chauffer.
Then it looks like he was injured and he was taken as a POW by the local hospital where he cross-trained as an X-Ray special operations/Ranger technician
Are you sure this did not read “Cross-Dressed”?
Can someone tell me why most posers wear the caps with some medals and of course the attention-getting, “Hey look at me, I’m trying to forget the bad times and nightmares, but I’ll be happy to entertain you with my sounds-true stories.”
What’s really sad about all this Stolen Valor stuff is now we have to be suspicious of each other.
Today, I was at the Salt Lake City VAMC for an MRI, and on the elevator was another veteran wearing a “Marine Recon” baseball cap.
And, so, in my mind, I wondered if he was legitimate or not?
Ain’t that sad?