When the Marine Corps assigned Charles Osgood to a search-and-rescue unit in Arizona after two tours in Iraq, friends believed he was finally safe.
But joy turned to dismay last week after Osgood, 27, a helicopter crew chief, two other Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed when their chopper crashed during a training mission near Yuma, Ariz.
The Huey rescue aircraft was flying alone on a routine training mission near the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground, a military reservation along the Arizona-California border.
“We were all relieved that he had come home safely, which adds to the grief,” said Martin Jacobsen, pastor at Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Denver.
Osgood, a former Lakewood resident, leaves behind an 11-month-old son and a wife who is expecting twins.
A crew chief on the chopper, he was one of two crew members from Colorado who died in the crash. Maj. Cesar Freitas, a Marine pilot on the craft, was from Boulder.
Osgood and his younger brother, Tom, a member of the Air Force serving at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan, were raised in the church where their father, John, is an elder.
Jackie Kendal-Gebel, Central Presbyterian’s director of children’s ministries, remembers Charles Osgood as a small boy. “He sometimes brought his stuffed toys with him under his sports jacket to church,” she said.
“He was just a very idealistic young man, very sweet and gentle,” she said.
When Osgood told her he was joining the Marines, Kendal-Gebel asked him if he really wanted to make such a dangerous career move.
“He told me he had seen these commercials with the helicopter and the guy hanging out of it and rescuing people, and he said: “Jackie, I really want to do this. This is something I can do to make a difference.”
As a teen, Charles Osgood was interested in aviation, said Allen Sheldon, an elder at the church.
“I was in the Air Force in World War II, and he was interested in the B-17,” Sheldon recalled. “He quizzed me on what it was like to work on airplanes.”
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
