Special Forces Soldiers die from non-battle incident

gits

Special Forces
Verified SOF
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http://news.soc.mil/releases/News Archive/2008/June/080630-01.html

RELEASE NUMBER: 080630-01
DATE POSTED: JUNE 30, 2008

PRESS RELEASE: Special Forces Soldiers die from non-battle incident

U.S. Army Special Operations Command Public Affairs Office

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (USASOC News Service, June 30, 2008) — Three Army Special Forces Soldiers died from a non-battle incident June 28 near Khosrow-E Sofla, in the Arghandab District, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, while in support of combat operations.

The following Soldiers, all assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, N.C., died from drowning after their vehicle, an RG-31 Mine Protected Vehicle, rolled into a river bed while conducting a patrol:

Master Sgt. Shawn E. Simmons, 39, of Ashland, Mass., was a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha team sergeant.

Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey M. Radamorales, 32, of Naranjito, Puerto Rico, was a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha senior medical sergeant.

Sgt. James M. Treber, 24, of San Diego, Calif., was a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha weapons sergeant.

Simmons is survived by his wife, Tricia, daughter, Erin and son, Justin, of Hope Mills, N.C.; and mother Alberta Simmons, of Tallahassee, Fla.

Radamorales is survived by his wife, Amanda, stepson, Andrew and daughter, Jessica, of Fayetteville, N.C.; and mother Virginia Morales, of Dorado, Puerto Rico.

Treber is survived by his wife, Tamila, of Aberdeen, N.C.; father, Gordon Treber, of Astoria, Ore.; mother, Laurie Treber, of Mohave, Ariz.; and brother, Gordon Treber, Jr., of National City, Calif.

The incident is under investigation.

For further information, media should contact the Special Forces Command Public Affairs Office during duty hours at 910-432-2269 or after duty hours at 910-689-6187.

For Simmons' bio, click here...
http://news.soc.mil/releases/News Archive/2008/June/MSG Simmons Bio.pdf

For Radamorales' bio, click here...
http://news.soc.mil/releases/News Archive/2008/June/SFC Rada Bio.pdf

For Treber's bio, click here...
http://news.soc.mil/releases/News Archive/2008/June/SGT Treber bio.pdf

RIP Warriors
 
oh what a tragedy. Rest in peace and may God be with your families and teammates.
 
Damn. I am due to sign into this battalion soon. They have been hit hard in the past week :(

RIP.
 
Rest Easy Gentlemen. Take a knee, smoke em if ya got em, and let the wind take you to higher sky's.

RIP Warriors.
 
There are a couple of us here who had MSG Simmons as a SFAS Cadre then a Stu Co TAC during our time in the SFQC.

SFC Radamorales graduated one class ahead of mine, knew him well...

RIP Brothers. You three will be missed.

Crip
 
Soldier was great ‘coach to all kids

Soldier was great ‘coach to all kids’


By Tina Ray
Staff writer
The kids called him coach.

Shawn Simmons was one of those men who had time for boys who wanted to learn baseball. He was the guy who taught them a level swing. He showed them how to stay down on a ground ball, as scary as that can seem when you are just a kid and the ball is hard.

The Army called him Master Sgt. Simmons. He was a member of the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. The job sometimes took him away from the boys he loved to coach. Late in June, the job took him away for good. Simmons was one of three soldiers who died in a vehicle rollover in Afghanistan.

He was 39.

Members of the team for which he served as an assistant coach — the 9- and 10-year-old Hitmen of Hope Mills — are struggling to understand the loss.

Ten-year-old Devin Parker cried when his mother, Stephanny, broke the news to him. She had cried all day herself before she could bring herself to tell her son.

“I tried to hold it in a little bit, but I couldn’t control it,” Devin said. “He was my friend. He was really a good person. He made us all feel good about ourselves.”

His mother said Simmons gave her son confidence. “It was his leadership and coaching skills and guidance with the kids that made a difference,” she said.

Simmons taught 9-year-old Trinity Sudenberg to hit. His mother, Darcy LaClaire, was impressed that the coach was always so positive with her son and others.

“He always had a good attitude,” she said. “He had the happiness of his job, his family, everything. He had it all.”

‘Sweet spirit’
“My husband had a very sweet spirit about him,” said his widow, Tricia Simmons. “He got along with everybody. He had a lot of good things to say, and he was that way all the time.”

The family moved to Hope Mills in 1999. Youth baseball and softball are big sports in the small town.

“He has always wanted to be a coach,” Tricia Simmons said. Simmons’ son Justin, 10, was a pitcher and first baseman for the Hitmen. His daughter, Erin, is 12.

Marcus Jones was the head coach of the Hitmen. Simmons was his assistant for two years. Craig Archer, a retired Army master sergeant who helped train Simmons for Special Forces, recruited him to the coaching ranks. Archer, who now lives in Tampa, Fla., was president of the Hope Mills Youth Association at the time.

Both Jones and Archer were struck by Simmons’ love for children and his ability to teach them.

“He was a very, very respectable man,” Jones said. “He loved kids, and he was a great father and a great mentor and coach to all kids.”

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=298650

RIP :(
 
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