Fort Jackson memorial service for soldier found dead on course

Memorial service for Jamie Contreas who was found dead on a land navigation course as he was attending the Army Drill Sgt. Academy.

[BIGRDS]

This whole situation could have been prevented and reeks of lack of accountability on this unit.. I bet money he passed away due to heat exhaustion. First they got his rank wrong and called him SSG when first reporting his death, then they said he was a Drill Sergeant in training, then they show his picture and he is a SFC and already a Drill Sergeant with a Drill Sergeant badge? Where was the GPS that is usually put on soldiers while doing land nav? Fort Jackson in May-July can get to 113 degrees every single day. As a private who went through OSUT at Jackson May 2012-October 2012 we had GPS attached to our FLC that the Drill Sergeants could see our location in real time. Second, we were in groups of two. Third, he was missing from 2pm-11pm if I recall but he entered the course at 10am. That is ABSURD to lose a Senior NCO on a land nav course for that long. Even when I went to get my Jungle tab in Hawaii in 2016 they had GPS on soldiers of all ranks (SPC-COL) during land nav in the Jungle. If someone was monitoring his location they would have seen from 10am that morning to 11pm at night his location in real time and if he sat in one location for too long. Considering they had multiple points to plot for their land nav any soldier seen in the same spot should throw up red flags! This is a TRADOC post and this is disgusting how many soldiers die in "training" across the board when supply sergeants in every unit I've been in always spend money on DUMB stuff that the unit doesn't "NEED" but then basic GPS that could save a Soldier's life is nowhere to be found! They had to ping this SFC cell phone to find him and call in the South Carolina Secret Service for help as well as local authorities.. terrible on the DES for Fort Jackson and leadership of this unit! RIP SFC Contreras, somebody definitely failed you for allowing you to go out on an individual land nav course with no tracking device during temperatures I am sure were 100+!

[History_Coffee]

Are you guys going to report on what happened? He just up and died on a land nav course? An experienced senior NCO?

[Reactions.]

Why do they keep referring to him as a Staff Sergeant when you can clearly see his rank of Sergeant First Class?

[MrKinickie]

They “cared” yet as his fiancé I didn’t find out about this until today just 2 hours before.

[EasternAmerica]

If we can put gps tags on luggage, put them on trainees.