HELMICH, GERALD ROBERT
Name: Gerald Robert Helmich
Branch/Rank: United States Air Force/O4
Unit:
Date of Birth: 17 November 1931
Home City of Record: MANCHESTER NH
Date of Loss: 12 November 1969
Country of Loss: LAOS
Loss Coordinates: 172800 North 1054000 East
Status (in 1973): Presumptive Finding of Death
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A1H #139821
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident:
Refno: 1521
Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File.
REMARKS:
CACCF/CRASH/PILOT
No further information available at this time.
-------------------------------------------------
Plaque honors Manchester man killed in Vietnam War
By Holly Ramer,
Associated Press, 05/31/99
MANCHESTER, NH (AP) - Nearly 30 years after Col. Gerald Helmich's
plane was shot down over Laos, Donn Inglis turned his friend's final
mission into a mission of his own Monday.
Seeing his high school classmate's name inscribed on a replica of the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial got Inglis thinking about a way to honor
Helmich at their 50th class reunion next year. But what he originally
envisioned as a small display at the West High School Class of 1950
reunion ended up becoming something much more permanent -- a bronze
plaque unveiled near the neighborhood where Helmich grew up.
"He was a regular guy who enjoyed fishing, hunting, swimming and
dancing," Inglis said at the dedication. "He had many friends,
including me, and a ready smile."
Helmich joined the Air Force in 1954 after graduating from the
University of New Hampshire. He was piloting a rescue mission over
southern Laos when his plane was shot down Nov. 12, 1969. Hemlich was
declared missing in action until 1978, when the government officially
declared him killed in action.
Hemlich was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the Air Medal, the
Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart.
His body was never found.
About 50 people joined Inglis at the Memorial Day ceremony in
Hemlich's honor, including members of the Manchester Veterans Council
and the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post, who helped raise money
for the plaque.
"Let it be a constant reminder to those who are here today and to
future generations that the freedom we have and continue to defend
around the world is costly," said VFW Post 8214 Commander William
Corbin. "Please, as you pass by this plaque and others in our parks,
squares, cities, state and country, take a moment to make that day
Memorial Day... Never let these heroes be forgotten."
US Sen. Bob Smith, R-NH, who has been a leader in the effort to
determine the fate of missing prisoners of war and servicemen listed
as missing in action, said he remains committed to finding out more
about what happened to Hemlich.
"The frustrating part for me is that the Vietnamese do have answers
they haven't given us on this case and others," he said.
Several of Hemlich's relatives attended the ceremony. Maureen
Gallagher Poehlman of Bedford looked across the busy intersection to
McNeil Street, where she remembers playing with her cousin.
"He was really a fun guy, very easygoing, very happy," she said.
"He was really like a brother; we were only six months apart."
She looked up at the bronze plaque, engraved with Helmich's name and
birthdate.
"It's really something special," she said.
=============================================
Article published Nov 11, 2006
Vietnam
Families still feel war's sting
Six from N.H. have never been found
By Joelle Farrell
Monitor staff
---------------------------------------------------------
Nov 11, 2006
Courtesy photo
Army Spc. Quinten Mulleavey went missing in Vietnam.
The soldiers had already begun slogging up a mountain in Bong Son, Vietnam,
when they realized Spc. Quinten Mulleavey wasn't with them. Walking back,
they found his pack, his rifle and helmet, an empty package of cigarettes
and a packet of Kool-Aid near a stream. But Mulleavey, 19, of North
Woodstock, was never found.
Mulleavey is one of six New Hampshire service members missing since the
Vietnam War. They're presumed dead, but without remains to bury or knowledge
of what happened, some family members find it hard to move on.
"My whole life, I thought he was coming home," said Daisy Badolati, whose
father, Staff Sgt. Frank Badolati of Goffstown is believed to have died from
wounds suffered during a firefight in South Vietnam in 1966.
The situation was especially difficult for Mulleavey's mother, Juliette
Mulleavey. The Army classified Mulleavey as absent without leave, not
allowing him an honorable discharge or a military funeral until they
reclassified him 13 years after his disappearance in 1968.
"I said, 'Where would he go?' " she said. "My son is not a moron. Why would
he want to leave his company and go in the jungle?"
Through interviews with former Vietcong soldiers, the agency has found
gravesites and other information about missing troops. Last year, the
remains of Col. Sheldon Burnett, a Pelham soldier missing since 1971, were
found in Laos and buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In 2004, the
remains of Airman 1st Class Phillip Joseph Stickney of Manchester were found
in North Vietnam. He was buried in Arkansas.
On the first Wednesday of every month, members of a group called Rolling
Thunder gather at Veterans Park in Manchester. They read the names of all 50
New Hampshire troops missing from the Korean and Vietnam Wars. They also
read the names of about 30 missing American troops who fought in the Gulf
War in 1991, and Matt Maupin, an Ohio soldier captured in Iraq in April
2004, said Pat McGhie, director of the New England branch of Rolling
Thunder.
"Many people think the war's over and everybody's come home," McGhie said.
Some never did, he added.
He enlisted at 18
Spc. Quinten Mulleavey was the fifth of seven children. His mother called
him "a devil"; he was sent home from school several times for laughing in
class. Coming from a big family, "fooling around just came natural,"
Juliette Mulleavey said.
As a teenager, Mulleavey worked at Clark's Trading Post, a tourist
attraction in Lincoln. One summer, he went to New York to help dismantle a
covered bridge and bring it back to Clark's. A plaque near the bridge honors
him.
Mulleavey's father and an older brother, Raymond, served in the Navy. But
Mulleavey wanted to be a paratrooper in the Army, and he asked his mother to
sign his paperwork when he was 17. She refused. He enlisted at 18, joining
the 173rd Airborne Division.
Before Mulleavey left for Vietnam in January 1968, Juliette Mulleavey asked
him if he was afraid to go to war.
"No, . . . I don't know," he told her. "Mom, I wish I knew more what this
war was about."
When he arrived in Vietnam, Mulleavey told his mother that he believed they
were in Vietnam to help the people there. "You should see how these people
live," he told her.
Mulleavey wrote home often. In a letter to his brother, he said that the
enemy always seemed to leave before he and his fellow soldiers arrived, so
they just burned villages. Once, they burned a hooch filled with marijuana,
he told them in a letter.
"The odor really screwed us up," he wrote, adding, "Don't worry. I don't
smoke pot."
The day before he went missing, Mulleavey wrote to his mother, telling her
that his crew had watched a film about the sights in New Hampshire.
"Whoo! Mom, they showed everything," Mulleavey wrote. "Clarks, Mount. Wash.,
the Cog, Flume, Lost River, Polar - just everything. Boy, talk about getting
homesick.
"The Old Man in the Mountain, the guys never believed me when I told them
about the Old Man," he wrote. "When they saw it on film, they were real
impressed. Boy I thought I'd go crazy before the flick ended."
On April 3, 1968, an Army corporal knocked on Juliette Mulleavey's door and
told her that her son was missing.
"I felt it so deep, I knew he was gone," she said.
Mulleavey's younger brother John joined the Army, hoping he'd get sent to
Vietnam and he could look for his brother. But the war ended before his
training did.
Thirteen years after Mulleavey's disappearance, the Army reclassified
Mulleavey as presumed dead while missing and granted him an honorable
service discharge, Juliette Mulleavey said. His family held a memorial
service.
Several years ago, a Vietcong soldier told U.S. military officials that he
recognized Mulleavey in a picture, Juliette Mulleavey said. The man said
Mulleavey had been captured and taken to a nearby camp. There, Mulleavey
heard American tanks and ran toward the sound. The Vietnamese soldiers shot
him in the back, the man told officials.
He led them to the spot where he believed Mulleavey had been buried. They
found only a uniform button.
The war had been over for more than 30 years, and farmers have plowed the
fields where Mulleavey may have been. His remains could be spread over a
greater distance, military officials told Juliette Mulleavey. Her blood
sample is on file in case his remains are found.
Mulleavey's grave is empty, but Juliette Mulleavey, 87, feels some finality
to her son's death now that his name is on a headstone at Riverside Cemetery
in Lincoln.
"People will know this boy existed," she said.
Learning about her father
Army Staff Sgt. Frank Badolati grew up in Goffstown but lived at Fort Bragg,
N.C., before shipping out to Vietnam, said his daughter, Daisy. She was 2 «
when he left.
Badolati, 33, was a rifleman in a Special Forces reconnaissance team. On
Jan. 28, 1966, he and five other soldiers were sent to the An Lao Valley of
Binh Dinh Province, according to information gathered by the POW/MIA
Network, a nonprofit organization.
That morning, Vietcong soldiers attacked Badolati's team. Badolati was badly
wounded by a bullet that hit his upper left arm, according to family members
and information gathered by POW/MIA groups.
The team split into two groups and continued to move away from the site
where they had been ambushed. The two soldiers with Badolati said he died
the next morning. They left his body, hoping they could come back for it
once they escaped from the valley and had outside support. When soldiers
returned, they could not find his body.
Badolati's wife, Jonny, who is from Denmark, never remarried, Daisy Badolati
said. The family never spoke about Frank Badolati, she said.
In 1999, Daisy Badolati, who teaches at a bilingual school in Oregon,
decided to explore her father's life and death. She met one of the soldiers
who served with him that day, Master Sgt. Wiley Gray. She met people who
wore bracelets with her father's name and the date he went missing.
That year, she saw a picture of her father for the first time. She keeps it
in her wallet.
"I brought him home as best I could," she said.
Two explanations
Sgt. 1st Class Robert Joseph Sullivan was a father of four and a Special
Forces soldier. He left for his second tour in Vietnam in May 1967, said one
of his daughters, Eileen Moody of North Carolina. Moody was 5 when Sullivan
left.
Sullivan, whose hometown is listed as East Alstead, was reported missing on
July 12, 1967, in southeast Laos. Moody said the military had reports
detailing two possible explanations for what happened to her father.
A team of three Americans and eight Vietnamese soldiers were on a
reconnaissance mission in southeastern Laos when they came under attack.
Only one American was rescued, and he said the other Americans had been
mortally wounded. The bodies of Sullivan and the other soldier, Sgt. 1st
Class Samuel Almendariz, were never found.
Moody said she has also seen a report that said Vietcong soldiers ambushed
the soldiers, wrestled Sullivan's gun from him and shot him.
Moody, 44, a retired cable technician, said her father's death was hardest
on her older brother and sister, then 9 and 7, and her mother.
As she grew older, Moody sought out soldiers who served with her father to
help her understand who he was. Moody said she isn't in denial about her
father's death, but it helps to hear others talk about him.
The others
Family members of the remaining four soldiers missing from the Vietnam War
could not be contacted for comment or did not return calls for comment. The
following is the last known information about them, according to information
from the POW/MIA Network:
- Air Force Staff Sgt. Clyde Douglas Alloway, 33, of Portsmouth is believed
to have been killed in a plane crash offshore in South Vietnam on June 7,
1970.
- Air Force Maj. Gerald Robert Helmich, 38, of Manchester is believed to
have been killed during an operation to rescue a downed Army helicopter just
south Ban Senphan near the Laos/Vietnam border. Helmich's plane crashed
after the planes came under enemy fire on Nov. 12, 1969.
- Air Force Capt. Albert L. Page Jr., 32, of Derry is believed to have been
killed when his plane was hit by enemy fire and crashed during a strike
mission in North Vietnam on Aug. 8, 1967. The plane crashed offshore, and
witnesses did not see parachutes leave the aircraft. Page's body was not
recovered.