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A fund has been set up in memory of the three Minnesota National Guard crew members killed in a helicopter crash last week.

The nonprofit Central Minnesota Warrior to Citizen partnered with 

 to set up the fund for the families of the three Minnesota soldiers: 30-year-old Chief Warrant Officer 2 Charles Nord of Perham, 28-year-old Chief Warrant Officer 2 James Rogers Jr. of Winsted, and 28-year-old Sgt. Kort Plantenberg of Avon.

All three soldiers were assigned to the St. Cloud-based Company C, 2-211th General Support Aviation Battalion. Nord and Rogers were pilots; Plantenberg was a mechanic on track to attend flight school. All three had returned home last May from a nine-month deployment to Kuwait, where they conducted aerial medical evacuations.

They died Dec. 5 after their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in rural Stearns County shortly after taking off from St. Cloud.

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Donations to the Beyond The Yellow Ribbon Memorial Fund can be mailed or dropped off at any Deerwood Bank location. For more information, contact 320-252-4200 or 

 page has been set up to assist the family of Nord. He left behind his wife, Kaley, who is expecting their second child, and a 2-year-old daughter.

The crew was conducting a routine maintenance test flight when the helicopter went down. Investigators are still trying to figure out what happened.

A funeral mass for Plantenberg is scheduled for Thursday at St. John's Abbey Church in Collegeville. Services for Rogers and Nord are planned for Sunday and Monday.

Disasters

Kirsti Marohn

Author

Donations to the Beyond The Yellow Ribbon Memorial Fund will be given to the families of the three Minnesota soldiers who died Dec. 5 after their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in rural Stearns County.

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