{"id":70422,"date":"2017-02-18T11:37:32","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T16:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=70422"},"modified":"2017-02-18T11:39:14","modified_gmt":"2017-02-18T16:39:14","slug":"wo1-shawn-thomas-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=70422","title":{"rendered":"WO1 Shawn Thomas; RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>A Special Forces warrant officer has died from injuries he suffered in a vehicle accident while serving in Africa, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesman confirmed to Army Times on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Warrant Officer 1 Shawn Thomas, of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, died Feb. 2, Lt. Col. Robert Bockholt confirmed. His death was first reported by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.armywtfmoments.com\/2017\/02\/09\/green-beret-dies-while-serving-in-niger-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Army W.T.F.! Moments<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our deepest condolences go out to Warrant Officer Thomas&#8217; family, friends and colleagues,&#8221; 3rd Special Forces Group officials said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Officials couldn&#8217;t specify the type of vehicle or any other details of the accident because of the ongoing investigation, said Sgt. 1st Class Victor Aguirre, a USASOC spokesman.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas and members of his unit are part of a contingent of soldiers, both civil affairs and Special Forces, deployed to central Africa to train local troops and support the local population in countering the spread of terrorist groups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;SF teams are advising members of the Nigerien Armed Forces who are conducting counter-Boko Haram operations to bring stability to the Lake Chad Basin region,&#8221; Aguirre said.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas, 35, enlisted in July 2000 as a networking switching systems operator, according to his bio. He joined the Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based 3rd Special Forces Group in 2008 following the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course. He went warrant officer in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The Oklahoma native deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan a combined seven times, according to his bio. His awards and decorations include two Bronze Stars, four Good Conduct Medals and various decorations for service abroad.<\/p>\n<p>He was posthumously awarded a Meritorious Service Medal and Army Commendation Medal for his work in Niger, according to his bio.<\/p>\n<p>He is survived by his wife and four children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Shawn Thomas is a hero. Posers and embellishers alike should be forced to watch videos like this repeatedly. Everyone wants to be a hero, except die like one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Rest easy\u00a0Brother, you have earned it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/articles\/army-green-beret-dies-in-non-combat-accident-in-niger\" target=\"_blank\">Army: Green Beret dies in non-combat accident in Niger<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Video courtesy of:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/6abc.com\/society\/heartbreaking-video-captures-fallen-soldiers-homecoming-\/1758798\/\" target=\"_blank\">Heartbreaking video captures fallen soldier&#8217;s homecoming <\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Special Forces warrant officer has died from injuries he suffered in a vehicle accident while &hellip; <a title=\"WO1 Shawn Thomas; RIP\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=70422\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">WO1 Shawn Thomas; RIP<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":659,"featured_media":70424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-army-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/659"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}