Fayetteville Observer/Times
Tuesday, May 12, 1998
DNA tests planned on remains of soldier
By Jamie Paton
Medill News Service

WASHINGTON -- For the millions who visit the Tomb of the Unknowns each year to pay tribute to Americans lost in combat, the message on the mausoleum is painfully clear.

"Here in honored glory rests an American soldier, known but to God."

But in a military laboratory just outside Washington, scientists on Monday said they were confident that they could know the identity of the unknown Vietnam soldier within a couple of months.

Using relatively new DNA technology, scientists will examine the bones that have been buried beneath the Vietnam tomb for 14 years - remains that one North Carolina veteran has said belong to former pilot Lt. Michael J. Blassie.

Ted Sampley, a Kinston publisher and Vietnam veteran who served at Fort Bragg for five years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, said he repeatedly has urged the Pentagon to exhume the remains.

In the July 1994 issue of Veteran Dispatch, he reported that "in 1984, as a result of the U.S. government's eagerness to lay to rest a Vietnam Unknown Soldier, it interred the remains of a missing American serviceman that today can be identified."

After conducting his own investigation, Sampley said he found evidence that the remains buried in Arlington National Cemetery belonged to Blassie. It is evidence that Sampley said the Pentagon has deliberately overlooked.

"They ignored us. They blew us off. And those DNA scientists from Maryland were so sure that it would never happen," Sampley said in a telephone interview. "They said, 'Under no circumstances will the tomb ever be opened.' Well, never say never."

CBS News did take a closer look at Sampley's research, and in January told the story on the evening news.

Just months after the newscast and the heightened media attention, the Pentagon has reversed its position. Defense Secretary William Cohen on Thursday ordered the exhumation of the remains, and on Wednesday night, workers will remove the steel coffin from the ground.