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Family Of Overboard Soldier Is Looking For Closure

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By GEORGE H. NEWMAN

gnewman@tampatrib.com

Published: February 25, 2009

PLANT CITY - A soldier from Plant City who survived a 15-month tour in Iraq was lost overboard and presumed dead while on a tugboat doing a training mission off North Carolina.

Spc. Samuel Valdez, stationed out of Fort Eustis, Va., was a 2004 graduate of Plant City High School. The family was notified on Sunday that Valdez was lost at sea and an extensive search was under way. The Coast Guard and Marines Corps searched in an area about 15 miles off Drum Inlet, N.C., south of the Ocracoke Inlet in the Outer Banks, the Coast Guard report states. After 40 hours, the search was suspended early Tuesday.

Valdez lived in Newport News, Va., with his wife, Lynda, who is about three months pregnant, and their 2-year-old son, Samuel Jr.

"The feeling in the family was initially shock," said Belinda Conde, the missing soldier's sister. "Still it is not about how or why this could happen. We are a strong Christian family. It is God's plan. The only closure that we are seeking is for his body to be found so that we can give him a proper burial. He deserves to be buried with honor."

Valdez, 22, joined the Army in March 2006 at the Tampa induction station, said Monica Miller Rodgers, a spokeswoman for Fort Eustis.

Family members said he was stationed in Iraq from about June 2007 through October 2008.

"Samuel was a very goodhearted man," his sister said. "He was a loving person. He was active in his church and played trumpet in the orchestra. He had many plans for his family once he finished his four years in the Army."

Valdez was a crew member aboard the Army vessel Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott, a large tugboat with a 24-person crew that was on its way to Charleston, S.C., to support a Navy training mission.

Valdez reportedly fell overboard Sunday during an Army exercise off the North Carolina coast. Crew members said they last saw Valdez on the bridge of the vessel. After searching the vessel, Valdez was declared to be lost overboard about 11:20 a.m. Sunday.

Rodgers said Valdez is declared "Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown" and will remain classified that way up to 10 days or until his remains are found or the investigation is completed.

Reporter George H. Newman can be reached at (813) 865-4451.

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