April 30. 2005 10:49PM
War story?
Harmony Johnson
Times-News Staff Writer
harmony.johnson@hendersonvillenews.com
Capt. Fred Sams, with the Polk County Sheriff's Office, talks about the time he spent in Vietnam last year. (PATRICK SULLIVAN/TIMES-NEWS)
More than 30 Vietnam veterans are calling Fred Sams a liar.
Sams, who is 56 and planning to retire as chief of detectives of the Polk County Sheriff's Department on May 15, says he executed covert missions in Vietnam for the Special Forces while serving in the Army in 1973.
More than 30 Vietnam veterans say that is not true. They say that Sams never was in Vietnam or a member of the Special Forces and they can prove it.
After the Times-News featured Sams in a story last summer, dozens of Green Berets from across the country questioned his service in Special Forces. Two produced military records -- Defense Department 214 forms that record a person's military service from start to finish -- that support their claims.
Sams touts his tour of duty in Vietnam and his membership in the Special Forces, the Army's elite unit of soldiers specializing in unconventional warfare and known for their trademark green berets, in the June 28, 2004, story. He claims that he was a member of a 12-soldier combat unit that monitored the movements of the North Vietnamese Army and assessed their equipment in early 1973.
"Red flags go up with what he's saying, especially with people who've been there and know what he's talking about," said Paul Moody, a retired Special Forces trooper who served three tours of combat duty in Vietnam. "An individual can't do everything that he said he did in such a short amount of time."
Sams' DD 214, the official Department of Defense record of service of military personnel, tells a different story of the Rutherford County residents military career.
The closest he came to Vietnam was a 13-month deployment to Korea that included no combat duty. Medical problems disqualified him from any Special Forces training, according to his DD 214.
In an interview on April 15, Sams denied the accusations, calling them a political attack.
"My stuff's on the wall up there," he said, nodding toward Special Forces patches and Army certificates along a wall in his memorabilia-filled office. "I didn't make it up."
Officials at the Special Forces Association, a global organization of current and former Green Berets, doubted Sams' story. On April 11, they sent him a certified letter asking him to resign from the group or show proof of Special Forces membership to a national memorial board.
Last week, Sams resigned from the organization without offering any explanation.
Article raises flags
Last summer, as part of its ongoing series on war veterans, the Times-News published a front-page story on Sams, "Vietnam vet has worn may hats over years."
The profile detailed an impressive career, one Sams has talked about for years. Initially, the article drew little attention.
But on March 10, nearly nine months later, e-mails began pouring into the Times-News, most from former Green Berets, all questioning Sams' claims.
By April 5, 35 e-mails concerning the story's claims had been received by the newspaper.
On April 4, two Special Forces veterans, Moody of Fayetteville and Joe Lenhart of Fort Mill, S.C., addressed the inconsistencies in Sams' story. To prove the story was false, the men obtained Sams' military records through a Freedom of Information Act request.
According to Sams' DD 214, he was a military policeman, an infantryman and a recruiter while enlisted in the Army from 1972 to 1980. The only mention of Special Forces on the DD 214 is a 19-week correspondence course on Special Forces operations, which Sams completed.
Sams does not dispute those facts or the length of his service.
But the time-frame raises questions. Sams said he enlisted in October 1972, which military records confirm, and was behind enemy lines on a Special Forces mission by early 1973 and in Saigon when the South Vietnamese capital fell April 30, 1975.
Moody and Lenhart say that is impossible.
Basic training at that time took about two months, followed by another month of advanced infantry training, a month of airborne training, two months of Army Ranger school and at least six months of Special Forces training.
After more than a year of training, it would have been late 1973 before Sams could have been sent to Vietnam as a Green Beret, they said. U.S. forces had almost totally withdrawn from Vietnam in early 1973 following the Paris peace accords, signed Jan. 27, 1973.
Sams' DD 214 show that he was permanently disqualified from airborne training, a necessary precursor to join the Special Forces, due to asthma.
Sams looked at the records on April 15 and said they were incomplete and incorrect. He said they omit much of his military service and awards. He said he did finished airborne training and does not have asthma.
On April 21, Sams provided the Times-News with several copies of certificates, commendation letters and his DD 214 forms that he said are accurate and complete.
The DD 214 forms he provided do not list service in the Special Forces or in Vietnam. His military records are more than 30 years old and many documents were difficult, if not impossible, to find, Sams said, defending his story.
Moody, a self-employed private investigator, said the military records he provided the Times-News are complete and were not difficult to obtain.
"If there were any more forms in there, the (National Personnel Records Center) would've sent them to me," he said.
Federal law makes any soldier's military records available to the public. They can be obtained by sending a written request to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo. The Times-News requested copies of Sams' DD 214 forms, but has not received copies as of today.
Contradictions
In an interview last summer, Sams, who grew up in Miami, said he entered the Army in October 1972 and completed basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C., all confirmed by military records.
He also said he finished airborne training at Fort Benning, Ga., and then 19 weeks of Special Forces training at Fort Bragg before being deployed to Korea and then Vietnam, which is not true.
He said he lost much of his lung capacity from exposure to Agent Orange and tear gas while in Vietnam, which prevented him from jumping out of airplanes.
He said he received treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and then became a military policeman.
An employee at the National Personnel Records Center, where military personnel records are stored, said there is no record that Sams ever received treatment at Walter Reed.
The military records provided by Moody, as well as the records Sams produced, contradict his story.
According to the DD 214, Sams began his Army career as a military policeman and spent 13 months in Korea, his only overseas assignment. Upon returning to the United States, he worked as a military police detective at Walter Reed until December 1975. He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for his service at the hospital.
In the documents provided by Moody and Sams, Sams began basic airborne training in February 1976 but never finished. He then became a section sergeant at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida.
Sams became an Army recruiter in July 1977, working in Miami, Cutler Ridge, Fla., Charlotte and Asheville before being honorably discharged from the Army in 1980.
The military records from both Sams and Moody list a 19-week Special Forces Operations course that Sams completed in 1974, long after American involvement in Vietnam ended. That was a correspondence course that gave an overview of the Special Forces, Moody said. Physical Special Forces training lasts a minimum of six months and includes the Special Forces Qualifying Course and language school, he said.
Sams said last week that he completed the correspondence course in addition to the regular Special Forces training. He did not provide military records that prove he completed at least six months of Special Forces regular training.
"I did what I said," Sams said. "All the stuff I've got in here, I've earned."
Not possible
Moody said he was unsure why the Times-News article took so long to garner a reaction from Special Forces groups.
Continued.......