signonsandiego.com
By Bruce V. Bigelow,
Gregory Alan Gross
and Jeff Ristine
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
April 2, 2004
Associated Press
Katy Wettengel holds a picture of her son, Scott Helvenston, at her home in Leesburg, Fla. Helvenston, 38, was among four American civilian contractors killed in Iraq in an ambush on Wednesday.
One of the civilian security guards ambushed and killed in Fallujah was a former Navy SEAL and fitness instructor who once lived in Oceanside.
Friends, family and business associates mourned his death last night.
"It's just devastating," Anthony Elgindy, a friend, said by telephone yesterday. "Everybody is just, just beyond ... " His voice trailed off.
"He wasn't there to engage in any fighting, although he only told me so much about it," Elgindy said. "He was there to maintain the peace and protect the civilians who are there."
Memorial: Slain soldiers identified, pushing March death toll to 50
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Muslim cleric in Fallujah condemns mutilation of American bodies
Many newspapers use graphic photos of Fallujah
Deaths of 4 are not top news in Iraq
Scott Helvenston, 38, was one of four U.S. civilian workers killed Wednesday in an ambush by insurgents. Their bodies were then burned and mutilated by a mob, horrifying events broadcast on television, newspapers and Web sites around the world.
He had been working as a security guard for Blackwater Security Consulting, a private contractor, outside the Iraqi city.
A neighbor in his Oceanside apartment building remembered him as athletic, full of energy and a devoted father to sons Kyle and Kelsey.
"He was always doing something with his children," Fred Atkinson said. "Camping, surfboarding ... "
When Helvenston mentioned he was going to Iraq, Atkinson said the ex-SEAL sounded as though he simply needed the work. "He said it would be a short stay," Atkinson said. "I didn't know what to tell him because he had already taken the job."
Scott Helvenston
Helvenston left the Navy's Sea, Air, Land special commandos in 1994, but he never let up on the physical and mental discipline he learned as a member of the elite Navy fraternity, where he had been a SEAL instructor.
"I think it's somewhat defining of who I am as a person," Helvenston said some years ago of his SEAL experience. "But I never thought that much about it until I kept meeting people who'd say, 'Oh, wow, you were a Navy SEAL.' "
A pentathlete, Helvenston's life was constructed around fitness. He marketed a "total fitness" regimen and taught mock SEAL fitness classes. He trained actress Demi Moore for her role in the movie "G.I. Jane" and worked on several other movies, according to his fitness Web site. He was on the show "Combat Missions," a reality TV program broadcast by the USA Network in which paramilitary teams competed to accomplish various missions. He also did stunts and acted on other TV shows and commercials.
"Scott was a loudmouth" on the show ("Combat Missions"), Elgindy said, "but he's not really like that. That's what the show wanted him to be, like a Navy SEAL."
Helvenston's fitness business was called Amphibian Athletics, which stressed calisthenics training. "My goal is to teach as many people as possible that your body is your gym," he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1997. "As long as you have yourself, you will always have your gym."
Helvenston was born in Florida and said on a Web site promoting his fitness videos, "I joined the Navy at age 16 after a difficult childhood (my father died when I was 7, and I had lived in 37 different foster homes)."
He described himself as among the youngest ever to graduate from SEAL training, based in Coronado. He told the Orlando Sentinel in an interview two years ago that he deployed four times to South and Central America, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.
Helvenston told the newspaper that he met his wife, Tricia, in 1987. The Sentinel said he had a college degree in criminal justice from State University of New York.
.Elgindy said when Helvenston's marriage faltered, the two men became close friends.
When Helvenston told him he was going to Iraq, Elgindy said he told his sandy-haired friend to dye his hair black and grow a beard, "so you don't look so much like an American."
Greg McPartlin, a former SEAL, recalled Helvenston as a triathlete and "a dashing young man."
McPartlin, owner of McP's Irish Pub & Grill in Coronado, said he had sponsored Helvenston in triathlons.
"He was a customer of ours. Good kid," he said.
McPartlin said Helvenston was one of many SEAL veterans lured into private security work.
"Blackwater hires a huge amount of Special Ops people," McPartlin said. "They pay them a lot of money, and there's a large life insurance policy on them, as well.
"They're opting for the big bucks."
McP's is known as a SEAL hangout. The desecration of the dead men's bodies in Fallujah "has lit a fire in that community," he said.
"It was a travesty, but we don't need a knee-jerk reaction," McPartlin said. "I'm not a person who says go to Fallujah and level the place. I say, send in the Iraqi police, back them up and bring the ones responsible to justice."
Reality show producer Mark Burnett told the Associated Press that he met Helvenston during the 1993 "Raid Gauloises," a precursor to the "Eco-Challenge," and said he remembered the former SEAL when casting the later series.
Helvenston's wife also had participated in the "Raid Gauloises" in years past and appeared in some of the company's workout videos.
It was not surprising that Helvenston had gone to Iraq to help his country after years out of the service, Burnett told the AP.
"That's what, in a time of need, true American warriors like Scott would do," he said.
Blackwater Security Consulting has set up a memorial fund to help the victims' families.
Contributions can be mailed to:
Memorial Fund
P.O. Box 159
Moyock, N.C. 27958 |
