Also Known As: Tony Poe or Tony Po
It never fails me to come across and read some interesting stories of people with CHamoru heritage. This particular one is about Anthony Alexander Poshepny.
What triggered me to look into the Poshepny family was a message that I received on September 10, 2018 from a family member that read, “My grandmother Isabel Mary Veneziano Poshepny was the first beauty queen of Guam in 1916. She was the granddaughter of Henry Mellinchamp.” At this point, I don’t want to disclose that person’s name until I am able to establish a dialogue with her.
Knowing my distant relationship with the Millinchamp’s I wanted to check if I was related to the sender of the message. It turns out that I wasn’t, but because I had very little information on the Poshepny family, I did what I typically do: research and enter in as many names of their family as I could locate and identify.
I did already have Anthony’s name in the database, but he was the only name I had and discovered he had other siblings. Below is a screen shot of his ancestry. His CHamoru ancestry can be traced through his maternal lineage and with the Guerrero surname.
A quick internet search on Anthony Alexander Poshepny will bring up a slew of pages that tell parts of his story as a Marine, CIA Agent, and his key role “training the US-funded secret army in Laos during the Vietnam War.”
The other thing that struck me and although speculative, and he denied it, is that he may have been a source of inspiration towards the role of Colonel Walter Kurtz in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now.
This information is still fresh with me so I will hold off on saying anything more until I am able to read and learn more about him. But wow! I couldn’t resist in sharing this part so far.
Bibliography
___. 2013. Anthony Poshepny. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Poshepny, accessed September 10, 2018.
Pale’ Eric Forbes. 2015. Siha Veneziano. From: http://paleric.blogspot.com/2015/07/siha-veneziano.html, accessed September 10, 2018.
John Prados. 2013. The Biography of “Tony Po,” AKA Anthony Poshepny. From: https://unredacted.com/2013/10/15/the-biography-of-tony-po-aka-anthony-poshepny/, accessed September 10, 2018.
Bernard Punzalan. 2018. Anthony Alexander (Tony Poe). From: https://www.chamorroroots.com, accessed September 10, 2018.
