From Vietnam to Manitowoc; a soldier’s helmet is brought home
By Preston Stober
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MANITOWOC, Wisconsin (WGBA) — The helmet worn by a Wisconsin man when he was killed during the Vietnam War is now back home.
When Jeffrey Rupp died in 1969, his helmet never made its way back home.
Tony and Hugo Booth returned the helmet from a thrift store in the UK.
Dave Rupp, Jeffrey’s nephew, said that it meant the world to his family.
The helmet was worn by Jeffrey Rupp when he was killed in the Vietnam War in 1969, decades later, in 2022, the helmet was found in a thrift shop in England by Tony and Hugo Booth.
“I’ve just been keeping it safe,” Hugo said. “Until we were able to give it back.”
The father and son don’t know how it got to the small island of Guernsey in the English Channel from Vietnam.
“I remember the Vietnam War,” Tony said. “I was six when Jeff Rupp was killed.”
After being interviewed on TV in England about the helmet, they say one of Rupp’s family members here in Wisconsin saw it and got in contact with them. Now, they were finally able to return it to his family and Jeffrey’s nephew Dave Rupp.
“I think everybody just assumed it was gone and never coming back,” Dave said.
The men from England met Rupp’s family last weekend in Manitowoc, where the helmet of Jeffrey Rupp returned home.
“It was just meant to be,” Dave said. “They’re fantastic people, they got to meet all of my friends. My friends no longer call them the helmet people.”
But their trip wasn’t over, I joined Tony and Hugo, when they made their way to Jeffrey’s gravesite in Eden.
“To lose my brother would be, for me, soul destroying,” Hugo said.
The final item that traveled with them was a red rock from the shores of Guernsey to be laid at the gravesite.
“Families are still feeling the pain of the Vietnam War,” Tony says. “I hope we brought some comfort to one of those 58,200.”
They say their journey was all in honor of the late Private First Class Jeffrey Rupp.
“To my dying day, this will be up there as one of the best experiences of my life,” Hugo said.
If this story isn’t meaningful enough already, Tony and Hugo said they had no way to make it to Eden to see Jeffrey’s grave. That was until the manager of their hotel in Manitowoc loved their story so much, he drove them himself.
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