We have been learning about Porter’s Dan Dybsetter and his Vietnam service. Dan grew up on a farm near Porter and graduated with the Canby High School Class of 1963. He attended South Dakota State University, graduating in June 1968 with a degree in animal science.

Dan had barely returned home from college when he received a draft notice. He passed his entrance physical in October and the Army flew him to Fort Campbell, Kentucky for Basic Training. He described their morning schedule.

“Usually, they rolled us out at five o’clock and you’d get cleaned up. Fort Campbell was the home of the 101st Airborne and they liked to have people run. So, you’d be out running until about six o’clock when we were back in the company area and then to the mess hall. By eight o’clock we were ready to load busses or go to class.”

He recalled that even entering the mess hall involved physical training that gave some trainees difficulty.

“There was an overhead ladder you had to walk through leading into the mess hall. I didn’t have any problem. I had callouses because I was used to working on the farm. But I couldn’t believe the number of guys whose hands weren’t strong enough to hold them up on the ladder. They’d fall off and get blisters that’d bleed.”

Much of the training went by in a blur, but Dan recalled a day on the rifle range.

“When we qualified with the M-14, I had a good day shooting. We were standing around waiting for the other guys when the drill sergeant came over and said, ‘Dybsetter, the captain wants to talk to you.’ I thought, ‘What did I do now?’ I walked into the tent and reported. He asked, ‘Where did you learn to shoot?’ I figured I must have had a decent score. ‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘when I was a kid growing up we lived down the road from the dump and we used to take our .22s in the evening and go down and shoot rats.’ (Dan laughed) He said, ‘OK well good job.'”

Dan graduated Basic Training in December 1968. The Army assigned him MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) 11B, Infantryman, with orders to Fort Lewis, Washington for AIT (Advanced Individual Training).

“By the time Basic Training was over we got Christmas leave. I spent a couple weeks at my parents and then flew to Fort Lewis. We got out to Fort Lewis and they had a lot of snow that winter. (Dan laughed) We trained in the snow for jungle warfare.”

Dan’s familiarity with farm trucks excused him from some training.

“They wanted to know who could drive a truck. So, some days I skipped training to haul food out to the rifle ranges or wherever. But they wouldn’t let you out of the motor pool without chains. (Dan chuckled) Well, that’s a pain in the butt to lay under a deuce and a half to put chains on with the melting snow dripping on you. But they wouldn’t let you drive those mountain roads without chains.”

The trainees were aware they would likely be deployed to Vietnam.

“We were all quite nervous because we knew we were Infantry and assumed most of us were going to Vietnam. But you always hoped you might get Korea or Germany.”

Dan received deployment orders to Vietnam and pre-deployment leave home. Getting away from Porter in March 1969 for his flight overseas turned into a Minnesota winter adventure.

“That morning I woke up early. The wind blew all night, so I started bucking snow with a Farmall 300 with a front-end loader. It took me half an hour to get down the driveway and on the road. The township sent a guy out with a snowplow to punch their way through. I was supposed to be at the airport by mid-afternoon and we made it. That was the road to Vietnam.” (Dan chuckled)

Dan flew from Minneapolis to Oakland, California for his flight to Vietnam.

“They called it Flying Tiger Airlines and it was a 707. There wasn’t a lot of talking going on. We landed in Anchorage and from there to Tokyo, Japan. When we came into Tokyo we saw Mount Fujiyama in the distance, just as pretty as could be. From there we hopped to Tan Son Nhut.”

Dan remembered deplaning in Vietnam and realizing he was in an unfamiliar world.

“When you hit the door, that heat; that hot muggy air; and that country had a smell all its own that just hit you. Then when you stepped out the door, everything is sandbagged and bunkers.”

The new arrivals ended up at the 90th Replacement Battalion at Long Binh awaiting assignment orders. Dan’s orders were to an infantry battalion of the 9th Infantry Division in the southern, Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. He remembered the trip south.

“It wasn’t but an hour or two by truck to get to our division HQ, which was at Dong Tam in the delta. I remember getting on that truck convoy. I walked past this deuce and a half to climb in the back and as I walked past the box there were bullet holes all the way down the box. (Dan chuckled) That’s one of those things you remember as you were climbing aboard this truck.”

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.