In August 2023, we opened the exhibit, The Vietnam War and Lyon County. The exhibit located on the main floor of the museum includes stories, photographs, and artifacts from Lyon County veterans. Four Lyon County Vietnam veterans will be sharing their stories at the Lyon County Museum. All four upcoming programs start at 6 p.m., and the schedule is as follows: Tuesday, Sept. 3 — Ray Fox (US Army infantryman and RTO in the northern, I Corps Region), Wednesday, Sept. 4 — Royal Hettling (USAF security police dog handler at Cam Ranh Bay Air Base), Monday, Sept. 9 — Karl Porisch (USMC CH-46 “Sea Knight” helicopter pilot in the northern, I Corps Region), and Wednesday, Sept.11 — Rich Maurer (US Army radio-teletype operator in the northern, I Corps region). The programs are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Below are excerpts from oral history interviews conducted with Lyon County Vietnam veterans. These excerpts are related to the theme of “Keeping in Touch from Overseas.”

Self-censorship: “I think generally I’d write about once a week home. When I first got there, I don’t know which, it was one of the first sergeants goes, ‘When you write home, everything is fine. Don’t tell them about this or that. Tell ’em you’re doing fine.’ So, that’s generally what I did. I’d say the weather is warm or it’s raining. I never told them, basically, what we did. You know, I didn’t want them to worry too much.” (Ray Fox, Army infantryman And RTO, Central Catholic High School 1963, Marshall)

Mail call: “The only way we got it was with the chopper, bringing our mail in and dropping it on the deck whenever they could get to us. They’d find out where we were and then they’d call and say, ‘We’ll be there in 20 minutes or half an hour.’ We’d get it once a week or maybe twice a week.” (Bob Meyer, Navy signalman, Marshall)

Cassette tapes: “The biggest thing was cassette tapes that you could get at the time. I’d record a tape and send it to my folks and they’d then record over it and return it.” (Ronald “Nick” Sovell, Army artilleryman, Central Catholic High School 1965, Elko New Market)

Phoning home: “The radio would get one station out of Saigon and it comes across the station that Tracy got zapped. The guys were telling me, ‘Tracy got zapped. The town got wiped out by a tornado.’ The next day, our Stars and Stripes come in on the Chinooks. I’m reading the front page and the picture and I can see the Headlight Herald, maybe, telling kind of a disaster with a dollhouse here and there where it tore half the house away. I talked with somebody and they said, ‘If your folks are dead, they’d get ahold of you.’ When I finally got back to base camp a few weeks later, I hadn’t heard anything. I went to Red Cross and they gave me a, ‘Hell, if anything happened to your folks, you’d hear about it.’ We were back for a stand-down for a few days, so I could go anywhere. I grabbed a chopper and went up to Nha Trang. That’s where Papo was. He was in Commo up there — one of my Johnnie classmates — and I knew he could patch me into the World. We called The Headlight. I couldn’t remember the number and we got Bud Hayes from Ford, first and they go through. It’s all simplex/duplexing. (You have to say ‘Over’ after speaking to invite the other party to speak) Finally, we get The Headlight and I said, “Can I talk to my dad, Vic?” He gets on and just got all excited and Ralph Warner, a teacher of mine and my dad’s best friend, fielded the call and told me all about the tornado and things are OK. I got a kick out of that because my dad couldn’t even talk when I finally got through, but he kept interrupting (Jim laughed) so we couldn’t simplex or duplex.” (Jim Keul, Army Medical Platoon Leader, Tracy High School 1962, Lake Shetek)

The photograph featured this week is courtesy of Lyon County Vietnam veteran, Ray Fox.

The Lyon County Historical Society (LCHS) is a nonprofit, member-supported organization. LCHS operates the Lyon County Museum at 301 W Lyon St in Marshall. The Lyon County Museum is open year-round to visitors. To contact us, visit our website: www.lyoncomuseum.org, call: 507-537-6580, email: director@lyoncomuseum.org, or on our Facebook page.