KEYNOTES: Family remembers Capt. Seth Michaud
Rosemary Rimkus
After many months of reconstruction of the ancient Houghton Street Bridge, it was dedicated to the memory of U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Seth Michaud, with ceremonies on the site on May 25, 2015. Michaud, a helicopter pilot, was killed in Africa during Operation Enduring Freedom on June 22, 2003. (In 2018, the Washington Street bridge was dedicated to the memory of Pfc. Kenneth M. Thibault, killed in Vietnam in 1969, which will be the subject of another story.) Michaud’s widow, Karen Michaud-Goldsmith, and young son, Ian, were among those at the dedication. Michaud, son of former Chestnut Street residents Fran and Karen Michaud, was an honor student in the Hudson High School class of 1994, where he played soccer for four years, an Eagle Scout and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1998. He was 27 years old when he was killed in a helicopter crash in 2003. His parents moved from Hudson eight years ago, and now divide their year between Wooster, Ohio, where Ian resides with his mother and family, and Harrisburg, North Carolina, where their son Ethan and his family reside. Seth’s sister, Samantha, resides in Columbus. Ian Michaud, now 19, is a freshman at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, where he plays lacrosse. Seth Michaud is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where his parents, widow, son and other family members have often visited. Fran Michaud, speaking from Harrisburg, N.C., said that the Naval Academy hosts an Honor Our Fallen Heroes weekend every fall, and he and his wife, Karen, have attended several times. “We have been able to meet some of Seth’s close classmates and those have been special times,” he said. “We think of him every day,” he concluded.