The Northeast High School graduate excelled at water sports, skin diving, fishing and boating. He became an electrical apprentice at Frankford Arsenal, where his father worked, and studied electrical engineering at night at Drexel Institute of Technology. Nostadt was drafted into the Army in August 1964 and sent to Vietnam a year later where the assistant machine gunner was assigned to Cornpany C of the 2nd Battalion. 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). He was en gaged to be married. Nostat was considered missing in action for 11 months after his unit was ambushed in the la Drang Valley, Pleiku Province. After an investigation, the Department of Defense declared the specialist four to have died on Nov. 17, 1965, at the age of 23. He was survived by his parents, a brother and three sisters