Vietnam War era veteran Edward Moore shows off his collection of signed baseballs. Staff photo / J.T. Whitehouse

CANFIELD — For Cpl. Edward Moore, the designation “highly classified” was what his service to the country was all about.

Moore was a member of a specialized group of Americans who were part of MAAG — the Military Assistance Advisory Group.

Moore got involved in military service right out of high school. He graduated from South High in 1958 and decided to pursue a degree in education at Youngstown State University. While attending college, he got a job working for Republic Steel in Youngstown.

In his second semester at YSU, Moore received a draft notice. He was to report to Fort Bragg in North Carolina to begin his basic training.

“While at Fort Bragg, the commander has me sign a paper giving up everything,” Moore said. “It said if I was found, no one would know me.”

The commander was assigning Moore to MAAG and he was sent to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for some very rigorous training.

“I earned the highest award for small arms fire, so I was made an adviser,” Moore said.

In 1959, Moore was among the MAAG unit sent to South Vietnam to help train the locals and to secretly gather information about the French influence, which Moore said had operated eight forts in the region.

Moore said on May 7, 1954, Ho Chi Minh led an army of 100,000 armed with pitchforks and crude weapons to attack the French occupied Fort Dien Bien Phu. After a four-month siege, the French pulled out of Vietnam.

“Our group was sent in to find out what was going on,” Moore said. “We were an advisory group, but President Richard Nixon had signed a treaty with China and we were not supposed to be there, so we carried cyanide tablets in case we were caught.”

He said five out of seven days he was in civilian clothes and in the towns and villages just hanging out and gathering information. Two days per week he put on his uniform and was training South Vietnamese in small arms fire. He said he was working for both the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Army.

“When we were there, the governments were all in disarray,” he said. “I don’t think any of us recommended getting involved in the civil war that Vietnam was experiencing.”

He said the country was just acres and acres of tall and high grass. He said it smelled horribly as did the towns, which were very dirty.

“We knew about the underground tunnel systems, which were more sophisticated than a New York subway,” Moore said.

Moore served from 1959 to 1961. He said when China found out the U.S. had advisers in South Vietnam, it along with Russia began to supply the North with arms and training.

Moore was discharged as a sergeant and ordered to keep quiet about MAAG’s involvement in Vietnam. He returned to YSU and earned his education degree and a bachelor of science in art.

“My first job was teaching at the Mahoning County School,” he said. “I taught there one year and one year in Cleveland, before landing a job in Pennsylvania.”

He went to Blaw Knox, a steel mill in Ellwood City, Pa., where he served in the human resources department. He said it was like walking a tightrope between the company and union.After one year at Blaw Knox, Moore returned to Youngstown and had 15 job offers over a two-week span.

He ended up taking a position as an Allstate claims adjuster. He worked his way up the ladder to supervisor, then moved into the sales department, retiring after putting in 33 years.

Through those years, Moore married, had two children and settled down in Boardman. During his working career, he began coaching Colt and Pony League baseball, and later adding T-ball in Austintown.

Moore continued coaching closer to home in the Boardman Little League, and continued racking up championships. He even coached a semi-pro team for a short time.

He said when his daughter was older, one day she stumbled across his military patches and stripes and asked him what they were. She was surprised to learn her father served in the military, but now he was able to talk about it with her.

jtwhitehouse@tribtoday.com