We have begun learning about Marshall’s George Seldat and his Vietnam service. George graduated from high school in Decatur, Illinois, in 1965 before attending a year of college. He enlisted in the Army in 1967 after receiving a draft call and completed Basic Combat Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

George recalled his initial training helped him dig deeper than ever before when confronting physical fitness challenges. He remembered learning another lesson of a different sort.

“What I found in the military was that it didn’t really matter about your philosophy or intellectual capability. If you had rank, you had authority and you had to learn to respect that authority.”

George had leave before traveling to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, for Advanced Individual Training at the Military Intelligence School.

“When I left Leonard Wood we had leave so I went home and then flew out to Boston. That was a first experience, flying out to Boston. I got into Boston; got a cab; and went to a hotel because it was too late to go out to Fort Devens. I was to report the following day. I remember putting my wallet in the pillow case because that’s what you do so nobody steals your wallet, your tickets, and stuff like that. It was a new experience for a young man out of Decatur, Illinois, from a conservative, Midwest background.”

George found a pleasant surprise upon reporting to Fort Devens the next morning.

“We got there and were put into a holding company until they could sort us all out and get us into a cohort cycle for training. I ran into one of the follows I met in Basic Training. His name was Mike Domain. He and I got to know each other a bit in Basic Training. It was like a homecoming, almost, because here you are again, moved across the country. So, it was kind of fun to see him and you felt not as alone. Mike and I were in the same barracks.”

The training environment was quite different at Fort Devens.

“There was still the physical stuff. We had to maintain ourselves and had to take a physical fitness proficiency test. We spent a lot of time learning various communications skills; codes; doing cryptography; and methods for monitoring communications. We spent a lot of time in that training with radios, antennas, and setting up systems. A lot of our training was done in vaults. The buildings looked like a normal building, but your class would go in the room and they’d close the door and lock it down. In other words, the training area was secure and within that area, the classroom itself was also secured. So, there was no way those classrooms could be monitored externally.”

George explained the purpose of the training.

“It was primarily acquiring the skills to collect intelligence and to then to prepare that intelligence in some type of briefing or report. (Intelligence) was anything that dealt with understanding military operations and it was both looking at the enemy and also looking internally as well.”

The trainees had weekends off, but George explained that came with a catch.

‘The weekends were off unless you had a duty. What we found was that you could pull KP. I had to clean the grease pits. Having had the grease pit experience and cleaning the dishes, pots and pans, if I could find an option to get out of that, I was going to do that. There was a special parade unit on the post. They would dress up in period costume. It was a fife and drum unit and we would go to parades predominantly in Massachusetts, but we’d get up to Maine for activities. We were representing the military with a bit of historical flavor. We had muskets and we would do some firing, which the kids loved.”

George and Mike joined the parade unit and enjoyed weekends off without any duties, whenever the parade unit had no engagements. The friends explored the region together during the year they were in training at Fort Devens. Their hope to be assigned together after graduation, however, did not pan out.

“We completed our training and we all got our orders. Mike was sent to Germany and I was sent to Vietnam.”

The two friends parted and George began his Vietnam odyssey.

“I spent two weeks at home before I flew out to California where we were housed in these huge hangers for a while at Travis Air Force Base. There were just hundreds and hundreds of bunkbeds. You were processed, getting the paperwork done. We got uniforms and that sort of stuff and then you just sat on those bunks and waited for hours and hours. I was there probably for two days and then your number’s called and you just go out and get on this plane. It was called Flying Tiger Airlines.”

George distinctly recalled a stewardess on his April 1968 flight to Vietnam.

“The first impression I had was looking at the face of the stewardess. I just remember that she was emotionally moved by the experience. I think this was probably because of the fact that she had done it before and knew she was taking a bunch of young men over to put them in harm’s way.”

The Lyon County Museum is organizing an exhibit about the Vietnam War and Lyon County. If you would like to share Vietnam experiences or help with the exhibit, please contact me at prairieviewpressllc@gmail.com or call the museum at 537-6580.