LOVELAND, CO, U.S.A.
U.S. ARMY
SPC, CO A, 3RD BN, 509TH INF REG, 4TH BCT(A), JB ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, AK
04/30/2018, TAGAB DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN
Our beloved Gabriel David Conde was born at home in Belton, Missouri, on November 2, 1995. Gabe gave his life for his fellow American and Afghan soldiers in the Tagab district, Kapisa Province of Afghanistan on April 30, 2018. Gabe was twenty-two years old.
Missouri was Gabe’s home until the summer of 2009, when he moved with his family to Berthoud, CO. Although he left behind precious friends in Missouri, he “came alive” in Colorado. He loved hiking, mountain biking, and hunting, and he quickly gained new friends through his involvement in band, wrestling, cross-country, and track.
During high school, he went on three mission trips with Grace Place church to Madera, a small town in Mexico, where Gabe found great joy and purpose in helping the people in tangible ways. He spoke of how he enjoyed helping people who could not repay him as a way of honoring God in his life.
Gabe excelled academically at Berthoud High School, and he attended the Colorado School of Mines as a freshman in 2014-2015. However, he was not satisfied with “wasting time in school” while he contemplated his dream of becoming a Green Beret.
He enlisted as an 18X (special forces) recruit and completed basic training at Fort Benning, GA in 2015. He went on to special forces training at Fort Bragg, NC in January 2016, but was dropped in selection. He then was stationed at JBER in Anchorage AK where he remained until his deployment to Afghanistan in September 2017.
In the short time he spent in Afghanistan, Gabe was fortunate to do some things he always wanted to do, in keeping with his warrior instinct to defend the weak and to “vanquish evil.” He also spoke warmly of befriending several Afghan Army soldiers and of the rugged beauty of the landscape beyond the war-torn contested lands.
Gabe is fiercely loved by many people. He leaves behind his parents, Bob and Donna Conde, and his younger sisters, Olivia and Priscilla Conde, all of Loveland CO. He is also survived by his grandmother, Carolyn Schaumburg, of Greenville TN, and his grandparents, Robert and Angie Conde, of Greeley CO. The many members of his extended family will also miss him deeply.