SEABLOM, EARL FRANCIS

Name: Earl Francis Seablom
Rank/Branch: E3/US Army
Unit: Company D, 34th Engineer Battalion, 79th Engineer Group, 20th Engineer
Brigade
Date of Birth: 24 April 1950 (Maquette MI)
Home City of Record: Ishpeming MI
Date of Loss: 18 July 1968
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 110441N 1063751E (XT781250)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 4
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Refno: 1230
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 September 1990 from one or more
of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources,
correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.
Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 1998.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: PFC Earl F. Seablom was a rifleman assigned to Company D, 34th
Engineer Battalion. On July 18, 1968, Seablom and his unit were conducting a
road mine clearing mission in Binh Duong Province, South Vietnam. As the
unit was about 5 miles south of the city of Ben Cat, Seablom stepped on a
mine and was totally disintegrated. No trace of him was found.

Witnesses are certain that Seablom was killed on. Others who are missing do
not have such clear-cut cases. Some were known captives; some were
photographed as they were led by their guards. Some were in radio contact
with search teams, while others simply disappeared.

Since the war ended, over 250,000 interviews have been conducted with those
who claim to know about Americans still alive in Southeast Asia, and several
million documents have been studied. U.S. Government experts cannot seem to
agree whether Americans are there alive or not. Detractors say it would be
far too politically difficult to bring the men they believe to be alive
home, and the U.S. is content to negotiate for remains.

Well over 1000 first-hand, eye-witness reports of American prisoners still
alive in Southeast Asia have been received by 1990. Most of them are still
classified. If, as the U.S. seems to believe, the men are all dead, why the
secrecy after so many years? If the men are alive, why are they not home?