AUSTIN, Texas — The search for U.S. Army Spc. Abram Salas II, a Fort Hood soldier reported missing last week, continued Monday, but Army officials think he might be in San Antonio after leaving the Central Texas post for an unknown reason.
Salas, who failed to report for duty on June 23, currently has a status of "absent-unknown" as multiple military and civilian law enforcement agencies on and off Fort Hood search for him, according to a statement from Fort Hood officials Monday morning.
Fort Hood leaders in the past months have promised to properly investigate the disappearances of soldiers following the brutal slaying of 20-year-old Spc. Vanessa Guillen, who was last seen on April 22, 2020, before her remains turned up later that summer.
An independent investigation into how the Central Texas military leaders handled the monthslong search for Guillen found several examples where post officials loosely enforced soldier accountability, leading to an initial presumption that a soldier who fails to report for duty is absent without leave, or AWOL, instead of looking into whether they'd been harmed.
"In other instances, there was little to no effort expended at the unit level to even try to identify whether a missing soldier's absence was involuntary, or the circumstances suspicious," investigators stated in their report. "The status of AWOL often became a default designation without fact gathering or any documented due diligence."
In the Salas case, the Fort Hood Department of Emergency Services is leading the search until he's found. Texas Rangers, the investigative arm of the Texas Department of Public Safety, members of the Bell County sheriff's office, Coryell County sheriff's office, and local police departments are also helping to look for him.
Salas may be driving a four-door, white Dodge Dart with Texas license plate NFP-2796.
"Spc. Salas is a valued member of our team," Col. Chad Foster, commander of U.S. Army Garrison at Fort Hood, said in a statement. "This absence is out of character for him and has us concerned."
"Our number one and only priority is locating Spc. Salas and ensuring his safe return," his statement continued. "We are in regular contact with Spc. Salas's family and continue exhausting every avenue available to us to find our valued teammate."
Anyone with details about his whereabouts is asked to contact Fort Hood military police at 254-288-1170.
