Marine Corps Lance Corporal Erik Heldt

Lance Corporal Erik R. Heldt, 26, of Hermann, Mo., was assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. He died on June 16, 2005, when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device while he conducted combat operations near Ramadi, Iraq.

LCpl Heldt grew up on a farm in eastern Missouri and graduated from Hermann High School in 1997. He participated in basketball and football, but football was his passion; he also coached students in fifth through eighth grades for five years and hoped to return to coaching. LCpl Heldt joined the Marine Corps in 2003, loving every part of his job riding in the turret of his armored vehicle and manning his M2 fifty-caliber machine gun. He was deployed twice to Iraq.

“He was carefree but professional at the same time,” a fellow Marine said. His brother commented that LCpl Heldt thought protecting our way of life was the right thing to do. “He paid the ultimate price for us to go to church on Sunday morning or to go grocery shopping after work.”

LCpl Heldt was survived by his wife and daughter.