Died for country he loved
By Bill Montgomery (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
His classmates at Woodward Academy considered Tyler Brown (Alpha Sigma - Georgia Tech ‘97) a “politician in the making.”
“He loved to do things for people and never took ‘no’ for an answer,” said Jonathan Cooper, a friend and classmate at Woodward Academy. “He was patriotic, red, white and blue to the core, and we figured he could be president some day.”
U.S. Army 1st Lt. Tyler Hall Brown, senior class president at Woodward Academy and Class of 2001 student body president at Georgia Tech, was killed in action with his battalion 70 miles west of Baghdad, Iraq. He was 26.
Brown was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on Sept. 28. A funeral was held at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta.
His family has established a scholarship fund in his name, said Georgia Tech spokesman Joe Irwin. In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the Georgia Tech Foundation, Irwin said.
Friends thronged to the Brookhaven home of Brown’s parents, Carey and Sally Brown, as word spread. Many more telephoned and sent messages of condolence.
“He died for the country he loved, doing what he wanted to do,” said older brother Brent Brown, 33. “He lived well and died a hero. He lived life to the fullest, he truly did. He became a role model to me.”
Brown said his kid brother “fell in love with politics and our political system” on a trip to Washington while the older brother worked as a summer intern for the late Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.).
The same man tough enough to earn paratrooper’s wings and complete the rigorous Army Ranger training course also had the appreciation for manners to start an etiquette program with his fraternity, Kappa Alpha, Brent Brown said.
The young soldier had traveled widely Ð to “every continent but Antarctica,” his brother said. He said his brother’s travels “strengthened him as a person and a soldier. He experienced so many cultures, he saw the good and bad side of humanity.”
“We talked to him by phone from Kuwait. . . . He wouldn’t talk about his missions. He just said he had the ‘best equipment’ and the food was excellent. ‘Surprisingly very good’ is what he said. That it was hot.”
Soldiers ‘ambushed’
Tyler Brown, who was single, graduated with dual bachelor of science degrees in management and in history, society and technology. Commissioned from the ROTC program at Tech, he was deployed to Iraq early in August from South Korea, among 3,600 troops from the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.
Bob Boulia, public affairs spokesman at Atlanta’s Fort McPherson, said the young soldier was killed by small arms fire when his unit, a battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment, was attacked by insurgents in the Iraqi town of Ar Ramadi.
Details were not available, although Boulia said the soldiers were “ambushed.”
A “casualty notification team” - a chaplain and another officer from Fort McPherson - notified Brown’s parents at their Brookhaven home, Boulia said.
“I think in 26 years he touched more lives than most people do in their entire life,” said Walker Houk, his brother-in-law.
(reprinted from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 09/17/04)
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