4/6/2015 "Helgie" and I were classmates all through high school at Mariemont High in a suburb of Cincinnati, OH. We played football together for 4 years and graduated together in MHS Class of 1959. I have been Treasurer of our class reunions and, in doing so, have scanned the pages of our 1959 yearbook that contains all our classmates, Helgie and Charlie Schuler were co-captains of our League Champions football team in 1958 and my close friends. I am enclosing the scanned photograph with Helgie's picture for you. Feel free to crop his photo if you wish to insert it; I didn't see one for him. I have printed above his picture where he was shot down over near Khe Sahn while piloting a troop plane that (56 Marines also killed at that time) was hit by enemy fire during the Tet Offensive. I think of Helgie and Charlie (my life-long friend and Best Man) a lot as they have both passed away and both served as have I. I thank you for posting this tribute to all of our counterparts who did not make it through that terrible war in Viet Nam. Lynn Marshall

 

The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio Tuesday, March 12, 1968, Page 1 Air Force First Lt. Gene Helgeson, Mariemont, was the pilot of the C-123 transport with 49 aboard which was shot down March 6 by enemy groundfire near Khe Sanh. All aboard the plane are missing and presumed dead by the Defense Department. Helgeson, 26, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ellis E. Helgeson, 6512 Park Ln. The plane, with a five-man Air Force crew and 44 Marines aboard, was shot down by .50-caliber machine gun blasts about five miles east of the base, which is still under heavy fire. Letters received from the Defense Department by the Helgesons report that helicopters have spotted the wreckage but search teams cannot get into the area until the barrage ends. In a tape recording made by Helgeson February 26, he commented how he had only four months left to serve in Vietnam of his one-year tour of duty there. He also had written his parents that he was flying transport planes 12 to 14 hours a day and had made flights to 421 bases in Vietnam in the last eight months. Helgeson had spent his spare time and own money to buy tiles and lay them on the floor of a hospital in Vietnam. When he was 16 years old, Helgeson was captain of the Mariemont High School football team his senior year. He graduated from the high school in 1959 and went to Deerfield (Mass.) Academy before attending Colgate University. Between his sophomore and junior years, Helgeson left Colgate to work for Oceanographic Institute aboard the Atlantis for a year, sailing the Atlantic to South America. After graduating from Colgate in 1965 and receiving a commission in the Air Force ROTC, Helgeson worked as assistant manager of the famed ski resort, Sugar Bush Inn, Sugar Bush, Vt. He went on active duty in the Air Force in April, 1966, and won his wings at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma, in March, 1967. Helgeson is also survived by a brother, Guy, Riverside, Conn. Gene was the son of Ruth A. (Kastern) Helgeson (1908-2003) and Ellis E. Helgeson (1905–2001). He was survived by his parents and brother Guy. Ellis Eugene Helgeson is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. His parents are buried at Ephraim Moravian Cemetery, Ephraim, Door County, Wisconsin. - - - The Virtual Wall, April 22, 2018

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