THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996           TAG: 9611060364
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   53 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: ***************************************************************** Due to incorrect information supplied to the newspaper, the name of Petty Officer 1st Class Steven M. Voigt, a Navy SEAL commando killed last month in a helicopter crash in the Persian Gulf, was misspelled in several stories. Correction published Thursday, November 7, 1996. ***************************************************************** SEAL KILLED IN CRASH OF ENTERPRISE COPTER VOLUNTEERED FOR TRIP

A Navy commando killed when a helicopter crashed in the Persian Gulf last month was not scheduled to be part of the deployment on which he died.

But Steven Mark Voight stepped forward when a contingent of Norfolk-based SEALs bound for a six-month cruise on the carrier Enterprise came up one member short, his boss says.

``They were short a man, very short to the time of departure, and when he found out he volunteered for it, at very short notice,'' said Chief Warrant Officer Ken Viera, Voight's supervisor on SEAL Team 8.

``He worked directly for me, and we discussed it at length,'' Viera said. ``He wrestled with it, because he was a very devoted father. But he knew it was the right thing to do, because he was a SEAL.''

Today, Voight's colleagues, among the Navy's fighting elite, will salute the 1st class petty officer's dedication at a memorial service at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.

The 1 p.m. ceremony at the base chapel comes 12 days after Voight and 11 other sailors crashed into the Persian Gulf aboard a Navy HH-60H Seahawk helicopter, in an accident for which the Navy has not released an explanation.

The chopper went down about 140 miles southeast of Kuwait City after a training exercise in which several SEALs aboard the craft had practiced boarding a ship from the air.

The accident also killed the chopper's pilot and copilot. Three others aboard the craft were hospitalized.

Voight was in charge of SEAL Team 8's diving operations and coordinated its submarine-training operations, Viera said. He was also in charge of his platoon's boats and engines and was an expert mountaineer.

The Waverly, Ga., native was the single father of a young son, David, and ``was a very concerned father,'' coaching his son's sports teams and otherwise involving himself in the boy's life.

``He was an outstanding young petty officer who was extremely eager to please, volunteered for every operation he could get his hands on, and on top of that was balancing the single-parent act,'' Viera said.

``We're kind of numb from it. We're going to miss him a lot.''

KEYWORDS: U.S NAVY SEAL ACCIDENT FATALITY MISSION by CNB