{"id":74772,"date":"2017-09-17T09:19:33","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T13:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=74772"},"modified":"2022-01-23T22:47:55","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T03:47:55","slug":"donald-gray-phony-pow-sniper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=74772","title":{"rendered":"Donald Gray; phony POW, sniper"},"content":{"rendered":"

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AverageNCO found an article about the amazing Donald Gray who went to the mobile Vietnam Memorial when it came to Cave City, Kentucky. Gray told his story to the journalist, Gina Kinslow, from the Glasgow Daily Times<\/a>;<\/p>\n

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Gray was a sniper in Vietnam and said it is past time to pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a miracle that I’m not worse than I am, because I was right in the middle of Agent Orange and Agent White and all that stuff that they sprayed,\u201d he said. \u201cThey done it the heaviest around Saigon. My home post was 40 miles north of Saigon, but I spent most of my time all up and down and through Vietnam. If they sent me out for a guy, I had to go and get him.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Gray said he was never one to talk much about his military service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never let no one but the immediate family know that I had even served three years in the Army and six months in Vietnam until 1991 when the National Guard was sent to Kuwait,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Gray was also a prisoner of war while serving in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent roughly eight hours as a prisoner,\u201d he said. \u201cI got loose. I would have gotten loose if I had to chew the ropes in two. I was determined.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained he had met a girl while on leave and had popped the question. She said yes, but the couple decided not to marry until he returned home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gave me high esteem to get back home,\u201d he said. \u201cI would have walked over anybody to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

He fought five of his captors and managed to get the pilot, copilot and a door gunner free. They made it back to the helicopter where they had been shot down and then called for help.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, Gray was indeed in the Army from 1966-1969. He was in Vietnam from May 1969-October 1969. He was assigned to the 229th Service and Repair company as a power train repairman. He went to Vietnam from an assignment in Germany. He wasn’t a sniper, he didn’t have to retrieve downed airmen. He wasn’t a POW according to DPAA;<\/p>\n

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He wasn’t on active duty during the Gulf War;<\/p>\n

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Donald Gray’s only military records;<\/p>\n

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I guess it wasn’t good enough that he’d served when many Americans of his generation wouldn’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AverageNCO found an article about the amazing Donald Gray who went to the mobile Vietnam Memorial when it came to Cave City, Kentucky. Gray told his story to the journalist, Gina Kinslow, from the Glasgow Daily Times; Gray was a sniper in Vietnam and said it is past time to pay tribute to those who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phony-soldiers","category-valorvultures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/59a762bbee758.image_.jpg?fit=369%2C438&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-js0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}