Today we honor EOD1 Luis Souffront, DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6) Gold Squadron.
He enlisted in the Navy in July 2000, completed EOD school in 2002, and served with EODMU-5 in Guam before screening for DEVGRU. He reported in November 2005, finished the rigorous joint EOD/SEAL selection as the top marksman in his class, and attached to Gold Squadron.
Teammates remembered him as one of the best EOD technicians in the community, skilled, reliable, and the kind of operator who could outshoot many of the assaulters he supported.
On the night of February 7, 2008, during his second combat deployment to Iraq, Souffront was with a Gold Squadron troop on a target in Iraq. After a tactical call-out, he helped search personnel leaving the building and provided security. A house-borne IED detonated and collapsed part of the structure. Several operators were badly wounded, and Luis was killed when the building came down on him. He was 25.
Luis wasn’t just an EOD tech attached to the team, he was one of them. High-school friends who enlisted alongside him, Gold Squadron operators who fought next to him, and the wider EOD and NSW communities still speak of his work ethic, his leadership as EOD team LPO, and the gap he left.
Rest easy, Luis.
Never forgotten 💣🔱