Helge Philipp Boes

Helge Phillipp Boes (June 20, 1970 – February 5, 2003) was a German American intelligence officer and lawyer who was killed in Afghanistan while working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) early in the Global War on Terrorism.

Early life and education On Jun 20, 1970, Helge Boes was born in Hamburg, West Germany to American Roderich Boes and German Monika Boes. The family moved to West Berlin when he was two, and life in the walled city surrounded by Communist East Germany allowed him "to see up close the damaging effects of a closed society,” his older brother Henrik told Reuters in 2003. Boes attended John F. Kennedy School, a German-American elementary and high school where he excelled in football, graduating in 1989.

In 1989, Boes moved to Kennesaw, Georgia and enrolled at Georgia State University. He graduated summa cum laude in 1992. He then entered Harvard Law School, graduating cum laude in 1997 alongside his future wife, Cindy E. Tidler. The two married in 1999.

Legal career Following graduation from law school, Boes joined the white shoe law firm Latham & Watkins, where he worked as a staff attorney until, 2001, when he decided to give up the legal profession to join the CIA.

Boes was memorialized with the 92nd star etched into the CIA Memorial Wall.

The Washington Premier League, the United States Adult Soccer Association affiliate serving the Washington DC metropolitan area with which Boes used to play goalkeeper, has hosted the Helge Boes Cup as the championship match for the Premier Division annually since 2012.

According to Reuters, Boes and fellow Harvard Law class of 1997 member Michael E. Weston were best friends during and after law school, and both found private legal practice unfulfilling. They also loved the same woman, Harvard Law classmate Cindy Tidler. Tidler and Boes married in 1999. Six years after Boes' death in 2003, she married Weston, who was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan five months later while working for the DEA, the War in Afghanistan ultimately widowing her twice.