Tony Poe * United States Marines & Central Intelligence Agency

This is the story of a man who fought for Uncle Sam in WW2, Korea, and again during the Vietnam War. The Pentagon was top heavy with leftover brass during Vietnam, and Congress was top heavy with the same gutless “leadership” we see today. They underestimated their Hanoi opponents, assuming the same military and political postures as they did with Korea. Korea was a loser so Tony improvised some “unusual” tactics for Indo China. I admire Tony Poe because he wasn’t afraid to risk his life for his convictions and for his country. How many politicians do we have today who would risk anything for America?

                                                                                                                             

Anthony Poshepny, “Tony Poe,” was a kick-ass individual, and an American patriot.  He was born in Long Beach, California, September 18, 1924. At the age of eighteen he dropped out of high school and joined the Marine Corps.

He served with the Para-Marines in the Southwest Pacific until his unit was broken up, and he was assigned to the 5^th Marine Division. Tony and his buddies landed on Iwo Jima in February, 1945 where he was the leader of a machine gun section. The Japs were underground in concrete bunkers. Iwo Jima was hell on wheels. Fifteen days later he was shot through the calf. He recovered in time to serve in Japan as part of MacArthur’s occupational force.

After the war he entered St. Mary’s College in San Francisco. Later on he transferred to San Jose State where he graduated in 1950 with a degree in History and English. He planned on joining the FBI, but was recruited by the CIA. The CIA sent him to Korea where he worked with the North Korean Chondogyo. These were animist-Christians who believe that all things possess souls, animals, trees, insects, and humans. They worked behind the lines where they fought the North Koreans and the Chinese.

Tony was sent to Thailand in 1952 as a paramilitary case officer. He worked with Walt Kuzmak who ran the CIA’s cover company, Sea Supply. In 1958 he became involved in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the communist-leaning Sukarno government of Indonesia. Almost captured, he escaped with Pat Landry. They walked 93 miles through the Sumatra jungle, finally being rescued by an American submarine.

From Indonesia, Tony joined a project to train and insert Khamba tribesmen into Tibet. The idea was to save Tibet from the Chinese. The effort failed, but the Dalai Lama did manage to escape the clutches of the Chinese Communists.

In 1961 Tony was part of a CIA effort to train Hmong tribesmen in Laos to fight against the Pathet Lao, and the North Vietnamese Army. He and Vinton Lawrence were the only case officers in Laos in 1962, monitoring the Geneva peace accords between the Soviets, the United States, and Red China. The truce fell apart, and the fighting escalated in 1964. The secret CIA war was underway.

Tony got shot in the stomach at Hong Non in 1965. That same year the US Marines landed at Da Nang. President Johnson launched his micro-managed “police action” based on two naval reports, one factual and one wrong, of a confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin between the destroyer USS Maddox and three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats. Naval gunfire was exchanged.

In 1966 Ted Shackley was placed in charge of the secret war in Laos. He and his team became involved in the opium trades supporting General Vang Pao, leader of the anti-communist forces in Laos. Tony fell out with Vang Pao, accusing him of using his position with the CIA to enrich himself.

Late in the ‘60s Tony began to weird out. For him, Washington had lost their cojones and the will to win. LBJ never intended to win, he was afraid of Red China. Truman made the same mistake with Korea. But Tony and America’s Allies were never informed. Tony drank heavily, becoming increasingly alienated from everyone except his Hmong tribesmen. He had become the embodiment of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

Now on the sauce big time, he ran a much-feared assassination operation in Laos. He became good friends with Air America, another CIA front. Tony paid the Hmong tribesmen for ears they brought in, sliced off the heads of dead communists. On two separate occasions he dropped decapitated heads into compounds from aircraft flown by CIA pilots. 

In 1970 Tony was transferred to Thailand to train guerrilla soldiers to fight the Vietcong. Following the fall of Saigon in 1975 he retired from the CIA but chose to live in Thailand, returning to California in 1992.

Twice Tony won the CIA Intelligence Star, the agencies highest award from Allen Dulles in 1959, and William Colby in 1975. As a Marine he was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. He was married with two daughters at the time of his death from liver failure in 2003.

A Fist Full of Dynamite reminds me of Tony Poe.