Retired SEAL from Virginia Beach slain by bomb in Afghanistan

By Jaedda Armstrong

At a time when many men would have stayed home to enjoy their retirement, former Navy SEAL David W. LaConte headed back to a combat zone to train American soldiers on the latest military technology.

On Friday, he was killed by a homemade bomb in eastern Afghanistan. Army Spc. Christopher J. Coffland of Baltimore also died in the attack, according to the Department of Defense.

LaConte, 58, went to Afghanistan in August as an independent contractor with the Rapid Equipping Force, an Army organization based at Fort Belvoir, Va.

"He was very dedicated," Lt. Col. Dean Hoffman, the unit's team chief, said from Afghanistan on Wednesday. "He was one guy who couldn't sit still."

Last week, LaConte was in charge of teaching six soldiers how to use a new technology called an unmanned ground sensor.

LaConte could have easily created a Power Point demonstration to show the soldiers on base, Hoffman said, but he decided to go outside the wire and teach them the right way.

"That right there tells you what kind of a person he was," said Hoffman. "His greatest asset was his greatest demise. He was willing to do what it took to get a job done."

LaConte enlisted in the Navy in December 1969 and became a hull technician, according to Navy personnel records.

During a career of more than 20 years, he achieved the rank of senior chief petty officer and served on SEAL teams on both coasts, as well as at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif.

Neighbor Barry Ezell said LaConte was the kind of guy who always had your back.

Once when Ezell left town for a few days, LaConte saw a strange man standing in Ezell's backyard in the Salem Woods neighborhood. He quickly phoned Ezell and said, "There's a man in your backyard, and I'm gonna take 'im out."

"I said, 'No, don't! It's just a relative,' " Ezell recalled. "That's just what he was trained to do - catch the bad guys. He always looked out for you."

After hearing about LaConte's death, Ezell created a picture slide show of LaConte and his family and posted it on the video-sharing Web site YouTube.

By Wednesday afternoon, the post had had hundreds of hits.

Friends from all over - from Afghanistan to Alaska - commented on what a great person LaConte was. "David was very, very well-known," Ezell said. "A lot of people are feeling the sting of him dying."

Skip Krepcik, who met LaConte more than 10 years ago, said he had a warm, tender side.

"He would tell me how much he loved his family," said Krepcik. " He was so proud to live in a country where his daughter could grow up and have ambition, instead of living in a country where women are treated like property."

LaConte leaves behind his wife of 23 years, Robin; a 21-year-old daughter, Courtney; and a 14-year-old son, Cody.

Capt. Colin Kilrain, commander of Naval Special Warfare Group Two, called LaConte "a great American and a fantastic SEAL who served his country with honor and distinction in a variety of capacities."

"We will never forget his service and the ultimate sacrifice he made," Kilrain said in a statement.

A week before he died, LaConte sent his neighbor Ezell an e-mail expressing how much he was enjoying the deployment.

"God's been really good to me," he wrote.

Jaedda Armstrong, (757) 222-5846, jaedda.armstrong@pilotonline.com