Story + video: Norwich grad among the SEALs killed in downed helicopter

Brian Bill in his 2001 yearbook Norwich University yearbook photo. Bill was killed on Saturday when the CH-47 Chinook helicopter he was riding in was shot down over the Wardak province of Afghanistan after a mission. VTD/Taylor Dobbs

Norwich University today announced that one of its graduates, Brian Bill, was aboard the CH-47 Chinook helicopter shot down over the Wardak province of Afghanistan on Saturday morning. Bill graduated from the Northfield college in 2001 with an electrical engineering degree.

“We are proud that Norwich produces the men and women of character like Brian that want to be great warriors for this nation,” said Michael Kelley, vice president for student affairs at the university.

Bill was a skier and triathlete, and he aspired to be an astronaut, according to the Hartford Courant. He graduated from Trinity Catholic High in Stamford, Conn.

Bill was one of 22 Navy SEALs aboard the helicopter who were members of SEAL Team 6. The unit was responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden in May. According to news reports, the SEALs who died in the downed Chinook were not directly involved in the bin Laden operation.

The SEALs, among the nation’s most highly trained soldiers, were formed in the early 1980s. The secretive group of military operatives has most recently been involved in special missions in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. They splashed onto Vermont headlines in 2009 when SEAL snipers simultaneously shot and killed three Somali pirates who held hostage Underhill resident Richard Phillips hostage, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, that was overtaken by the pirates in the Arabian Sea.

Kelley spoke about the rigors of Navy SEAL training and the “intellectual horsepower” required to become part of the Navy’s elite special forces unit. There are other Norwich graduates in the special forces branches of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, Kelley said.

“It’s not just brawn,” he said, “these men are extraordinarily gifted men who know full well what they’re (getting) into.”

Since 2004, Kelley said, six other members of the Norwich community had been killed either in training exercises in preparation for deployment or on the battlefield. He said there were plans for a memorial service in the university’s chapel for Bill once students return for the fall semester.

Kelley said Norwich students would be saddened by the news, but that it would likely “sharpen their resolve to continue in their training in order that they may serve as they desire.”

“When we look at our graduates on graduation day,” he said, “they know full well – as do we – that many of them will be in harm’s way in a very short period of time after their graduation.”

The remains of all American service members killed in the attack are scheduled to arrive at Dover Air Force base on Tuesday. According to an article in the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, funeral arrangements are still incomplete, but Bill’s family plans to have him buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

When it was confirmed that Bill had been killed in the Saturday attack, Kelley said, he was “emotionally spent.”

“Brian Bill is an American hero, and we join his family in mourning his loss,” he said.