‘Combat Missions’ Participant Among Those Murdered in Iraq

It’s not often that the world of reality TV and the world of reality intersect, but all too often when it does happen, it’s because of something negative. Not even considering all the times when reality TV participants end up on The Smoking Gun for some infraction or another, there have been several instances when we have been saddened by reality affecting us all that much more because of reality TV.

Most prominently, it happened on 9/11. Murder in Small Town X winner and later Reality TV Hall of Fame inductee Angel Juarbe, Jr., was killed in the World Trade Center as he performed his duties as a NYC fireman. Meanwhile, the cousin of a Big Brother contestant was also killed as we watched the player and her cohorts find out about the news on our television screens.

Another such instance struck home this week. Many people saw or read about the four Americans who were killed by an Iraqi mob, who then mutilated and burned the bodies. However, what reality TV fans didn’t know at the time was that one of the victims had been on our TV screens before. Scott Helvenston, formerly of both Combat Missions and Man vs. Beast, was one of the Blackwater Security Consulting personnel murdered.

Helvenston had entered the Navy when he was 17 and served as a Navy SEAL for 12 years. He had what many have described as movie star good looks, and he put them to good use in both on- and off-screen roles in movies such as G.I. Jane and Face/Off. Helvenston also was a pentathlon winner and a fitness promoter. More importantly, he was a divorced father of two, a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old.

Helvenston had recently lost money in a business to market his Navy SEAL fitness training video, and went to Iraq to earn $60,000 in three months and put his skills to good use. He had only been in the country for a couple weeks.

Mark Burnett, who was himself a paratrooper in the British army and who produced Combat Missions, said of Helvenston, “It's not only horrible when someone dies who you know and respect, but in the way it happened, it makes you sick.”

While Helvenston might not have been as well-known as some reality TV show participants, for those who watched Combat Missions, he has put a face on the brutality of those murders in Iraq.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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