by Eric Blehm
If ever a story could come full circle, it was the headstone donated to the Browns by Dick Holden, whose business was making memorial markers and whose thirty-five-year-old son, Richard, was the boy with Down syndrome whom Adam had stood up for in middle school. When Dick told Richard that Adam had gone to be with Jesus, tears ran down his son’s face. “I miss him,” Richard replied. “I miss Adam Brown.”
Once Adam was laid to rest, the entire Brown family headed straight to Virginia Beach for a second, private memorial service on March 26 at the Little Creek Naval Base. There, more of his teammates provided remembrances, including Austin, who recounted the blade incident, and Christian, who explained how Adam had gone from being his competitive nemesis at BUD/S to a best friend.
Standing before a crowd of hundreds, seven-year-old Savannah demonstrated that the fearless gene ran strong in her when she gave her father one final gift. Adam had always loved it when she sang to him, so she did just that, performing an impromptu solo of “Proud to Be an American.”
“That was so brave, Little Baby,” Kelley told her when she hurried back to her seat.
“I know,” said Savannah. “I did it for Daddy.”
A little over a week after Adam’s death, Kelley asked Larry to drive out to that special property in Hot Springs where she and Adam had stood in the tall grass and envisioned the home they wanted Nathan and Savannah to grow up in. The lot had been sold, but Larry later located the owner; after hearing the circumstances, the man immediately sold it to Kelley for the same price he’d paid.
Kelley, Nathan, and Savannah stayed in Virginia Beach while Larry championed the planning and building of Kelley and Adam’s dream home. Though this provided a distraction for everyone, Adam’s absence was no less painful.
While Nathan’s and Savannah’s grief came in waves of despair that would last a couple of days or sometimes a few weeks, they were able to live normally in between, reassuring Kelley that her children would one day be okay. Kelley’s grief, however, was constant—and agonizing.
In her darkest moments of despair, she asked God again and again why Adam had been taken instead of her: the survivor’s guilt of a military spouse. He was the fun one, she thought. The kids will remember the fun stuff. They are going to remember all that, but I’m not the fun one. We were a partnership and God took the wrong one. Then she would bury her face in a pillow and sob.
Unable to sleep one night, Kelley was looking through a box of old papers when she found a letter she’d never seen, written in Adam’s familiar script at least nine years before:
I’m lying here about to sleep, and all I can think about is how awesome my life is with you and Nathan, and I was thinking what if something happened to me this week and you never really knew how much I love you, and how I love being married to you, how much I love my life and how awesome it is to be NaNa’s father. You are the greatest, purest, sweetest, and most beautiful woman I have ever met, much less I get to be your husband.…
Nathan holds a part of my heart that is unexplainable, and that I did not know existed until he came into our lives.… May he always know that the greatest man on Earth is Jesus Christ, may we always show him that. I am so blessed, it makes my blood burn with a completeness and happiness I have never had. You are so precious. Although I miss you so deeply, the Word says, “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad.”…
With Love Through Eternity,
Adam
As Adam always did in his letters, he added a bit of Scripture.
1 Peter 5:10: May the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
A calm came over Kelley as she read this postscript, a flood of resolve and renewed faith. She knew at that moment that Adam had intended for her to find the letter when she needed it the most. He had always said that the answer to anything you ever question could be found in the Bible.
Holding the letter against her chest, she thought, It’s Adam, reminding me to hang in there. Reminding me about what’s important.
Four months after Adam was killed, two busloads of SEALs who had been at war and missed the funeral arrived at his grave in Hot Springs. Larry was moved by how many had come to see where Adam was buried, near his grandfather’s grave in Adam’s beloved home state. “I just knew Adam was smiling down on us,” he says.
Larry stood with the SEALs and told them the story of the Resurrection. “I miss my son dearly,” he said, “and I know many of you do too. But Adam would have wanted me to tell y’all that there is hope, and if you’d like to see him again someday, you just need to invite Jesus into your heart.”
Later that summer, seventeen of Adam’s friends from DEVGRU headed to Arkansas; some of them, like Brian, Kevin, Austin, and John, had met the Browns at the funeral, and nearly all of them, including Heath, Matt, Kraig, and Tom, had been with Adam the night he died.
They spent a few days in Hot Springs visiting with different members of the Brown family and those from Adam’s past. Chris Dunkel invited them to Stubby’s for southern barbecue, pointing out the fire pit where Adam had worked. Jeff took them to the high school and Wolf Stadium, and then to Janice and Larry’s home, where the SEALs swam in Lake Hamilton, within view of the 70 West bridge.
It was still hot and humid when ten of Adam’s teammates, their battle-scarred and tattooed bodies clad in swim trunks, peered down at the deep blue water from the bridge where Adam had made his legendary nighttime leap.
“You sure this is safe?” one of them asked Jeff, who stood with them.
“It’s pretty safe,” he replied. “Adam would do gainers off it. Look, you don’t want to embarrass Adam in his hometown, do you? Don’t be a bunch of wussies. You’re going to disgrace the whole SEAL community.” He grinned.
And so the warriors climbed up on the narrow concrete wall, spread out along it, and with all the Browns watching from the shore, they jumped—for Adam.
Every SEAL from Adam’s DEVGRU troop jumped from the 70 West bridge to honor his memory.
Epilogue
ACROSS THE NATION AND INTO THE FAR REACHES of the World Wide Web, Adam Brown was hailed as a hero, his photograph in newspapers, on websites, on television, and—perhaps most meaningful to his teammates—on the memorial wall of a forward operating base in the Pech River Valley, Kunar Province, Afghanistan.
A week after Adam’s death, leadership from the Army battalion based at the FOB, the unit that had been repeatedly attacked by Objective Lake James, requested a picture of Adam to post alongside those of the battalion’s own men killed on their yearlong deployment in the Kunar. “We didn’t have any more problems from the James gang after March 17,” says an officer from that battalion. “Officially, we lost nine men in Kunar, but we always say we lost ten. Adam was our tenth man.”
On Friday morning, August 20, 2010—five months after Adam died—the Navy Band, playing the hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” could be heard across the Lake Hamilton school campus. A congressman, a county judge, and representatives from the school district stood before Kelley, Nathan, Savannah, and the rest of the Brown family, who had gathered with a number of other Hot Springs citizens for a dedication ceremony: Old Airport Road, which ran alongside the campus, was being renamed Adam Brown Road.
Adam’s old coach, Steve Anderson—now the district’s superintendent—began the dedication by recounting the speech he’d made to students just days after the attacks on September 11, 2001, and followed up with, “When I read those words in 2001, little did I know the price that America would have to pay in the War on Terrorism … that one of Garland County’s own sons would pay the ultimate price, that one of my boys, Adam Lee Brown, would sacrifice his own life in a faraway province in Afghanistan.”
A couple of months later, Kelley sold their house in Virginia Beach, and Nathan and Savannah became students at Lake Hamilton Elementary School, walking the same halls and playi
ng sports on the same fields as their daddy had two decades earlier.
After dropping them off in the mornings, Kelley would drive to the new home that Larry, Shawn, Jeremy, and other family members and friends had completed for her and the children in just eight months. There was no doorbell on this house—the sound haunted Kelley. Every time she heard one, it jolted her back to that horrible midnight that still seemed like yesterday.
Once inside, she would step into the office and glance down at the wood floor the way she always did. The planks weren’t perfect—upon closer examination, the dings and dents were apparent—but every time Kelley saw the mahogany planks, she could almost hear Adam sighing loudly, followed by, “Gall darnit! I cut the dang thing wrong again!” She could almost hear the hammer as he pounded the boards into submission.
These floorboards were so special to Kelley that she’d had them torn up from their house in Virginia Beach to be installed in this room overlooking the wide-open space that was now Nathan and Savannah’s backyard. The view out the office window faced the spot where Adam had parked on the property nearly three years earlier. “Right there,” Kelley says, pointing. “Adam drove into the middle. The grass was up to my neck, and he made me get out and we walked the lot. He loved it. Now we love watching the deer and the birds. It’s everything Adam thought it would be—I can feel his presence here more than anywhere.”
On shelves in Daddy’s room were mementos: his helmet from BUD/S Class 227 beside a Lake Hamilton Wolves football helmet. His beloved espresso machine and the inscribed paddle from Team TWO. On the desk, his Bible. The walls, covered by photos, certificates, insignias, and awards, including his bachelor’s degree, the Bronze Star with valor, and the posthumously presented Silver Star for Chief Brown’s actions
as part of an assault force that executed a daring raid deep into mountainous enemy-occupied terrain in northeastern Afghanistan … while numerous enemy fighters simultaneously engaged the force from the surrounding mountains.… Reacting immediately, and without regard for his own safety, Chief Brown …
Says Kelley, “Adam would hate having all these awards on the wall. He never, ever thought of himself as a hero, but he would have, in an instant, called every man on his team a hero for what they did after he was wounded. Kraig went in a second later with a grenade to stop the guy from shooting at Adam, and he got shot, then Brian, and Nick, Matt, John, Heath, all those guys rushed in with bullets flying everywhere to pull him out. Kevin, Tom, Chris, Jonas, Lou, and a bunch of others—they went through hell getting him out of there. The pilots, the medics that worked on him …
“He always said, ‘I work with heroes,’ but he never called himself one. Not ever. But he’s my hero and he’s Nathan’s and Savannah’s, and that’s who this room is for. It’s for them.”
Kelley with Adam’s teammate Heath Robinson during the ceremony when she was presented his Silver Star more than a year after his death.
Kelley has continued to honor Adam by “doing the best I can as a mom,” she says. “I have good days and bad days, but I’ve changed: I don’t cook like I used to, and the house gets messy sometimes. I always return to that verse Adam left me, that I will suffer for a while and then God will direct my path. I’m being patient, waiting for God to lead me. Janice and Larry’s steadfast faith has been an inspiration—they have channeled their grief into something positive.”
Janice and Larry by the just-unveiled sign at the Adam Brown Road dedication ceremony.
Despite their initial disappointment with God, Janice and Larry ultimately remain firm in their belief that Adam’s death, like his life, is part of God’s plan. “We were faced with some tough decisions,” says Larry. “Are we going to abandon our faith or apply our faith? Allow our grief to make us bitter, or allow God to use that grief to make us better? How are we going to live so that our Lord and Adam are honored by our lives while we wait to join them in heaven?”
Just a few months after Adam died, Janice and Larry befriended Jill and Brad Sullivan, who had lost their young daughter, Hannah, to cancer. Together they confronted their grief and began to heal, finding comfort in their shared circumstances and beliefs. The Sullivans and the Browns would go on to organize “While We’re Waiting” faith-based retreats for bereaved parents.
On the evening of May 1, 2011—a little over a year since Adam’s death—Kelley sat down to relax on the couch after an emotionally draining trip to Pittsburgh with Janice and Larry for the debut of a documentary called The Adam Brown Story on the NRA Life of Duty online television network. She cuddled up with Nathan and Savannah, switched on the television, and saw that President Obama was about to speak.
Osama bin Laden was dead, the president announced to the world. “A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden …”
“Nathan burst into tears,” says Kelley. “They were happy and sad tears. He’s only eleven, but he’s smart, and the kids are not sheltered anymore. Their daddy was killed; they know what war is.
“Nathan was nodding while I said, ‘I bet it was Daddy’s friends!’ When we listened to Obama, I flashed back to what John Faas had said at the funeral: ‘We will be hunting you down, and we are going to deliver you to the doorsteps of hell.’ This was coming from Team SIX. He was talking to the men, but he was looking at the kids, and I heard it as, ‘We are going to avenge your father’s death.’
“I just knew it was his team. It was such a release. It validated everything Adam did. We got him, and I was really happy about it.
“And little Savannah, she’s so insightful. She asked, ‘Are we supposed to cheer because somebody died?’ I explained, ‘Your daddy was gone all these years to protect us from this man and others like him. They are not good; they’re evil. They killed thousands of innocent people, not just SEALs. It’s okay to feel good that this man is gone, that he will never again do the things he did. The world knows that we won’t ever put up with anybody else who does either.”
Janice and Larry experienced the same closure, embracing Kelley when she dropped Savannah and Nathan off at their home a few days later on her way to the airport. They, too, had remembered John’s words and had rejoiced in the death of a man they considered evil.
Kelley flew to Virginia Beach the same day the media announced it had indeed been SEAL Team SIX that took out bin Laden, and attended a get-together with her family of SEALs and their wives. They lifted their glasses to Adam and to another fallen teammate, whose widow stood beside Kelley. They toasted all the men from their command who had been killed in nearly ten years of war, then they toasted those who had lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
As the night wore on, one of Adam’s friends took Kelley aside and told her that bin Laden’s death was further proof that Adam had not died in vain. “It was a team effort, and Adam was a team player. He loved his country, God, and he loved you, Nathan, and Savannah more than anything in the world. When those guys were flying in, I bet they could feel Adam there with them, Kelley. I bet they could feel all the guys we’ve lost.”
Although the DEVGRU SEALs I met with would occasionally bring up the bin Laden capture/kill mission during the many hours of interviews I conducted with them over the next few weeks, the topic was always in conjunction with Adam—specifically how he would have loved to have been there. “Adam would have been badgering his team leaders for the primary roles,” said one SEAL with a laugh. “I can just hear that Arkansas accent: ‘Don’t worry, y’all—ah got it!’ ”
The laughter would often bring with it tears; Adam’s death was a deep wound, far from healed.
Kevin Houston had just finished recounting Adam’s death when he broke down and cried. Apologizing, he walked outside on the balcony of the hotel room in Virginia Beach and stared out at the Atlantic Ocean, the same stretch of water where he and his SEAL brothers had trained over the years
.
Then he went on to tell me that he had spent a year pondering the question “How does this happen to a man like Adam?” He had ultimately concluded that the trials and tribulations of Adam’s life were “grooming for a future job. I think that the Lord himself had one of his right-hand men—like an angel or however it works in heaven—set to retire and Adam got called up to fill his place.”
Two weeks later Kevin went to church with his family and Austin and his family, and sat in the same pew they’d always shared with the Browns. At the end of the service, Kevin accepted Jesus into his heart and asked him to be his Savior.
“Adam really got him thinking,” says Kevin’s wife, Meiling, who called Kelley right afterward to tell her, “He finally did it, and I just want you to know, Adam’s life was the seed that inspired him.”
On August 6, 2011, six weeks after that interview with Kevin, I was in the Sierra Mountains enjoying a camping trip with my wife, our children, and some friends when Adam’s teammates, now deployed in Afghanistan, were called upon to assist a combat element under attack and in need of immediate reinforcement.
Seven of the ten men I had met with from SEAL Team SIX—Brian Bill, Chris Campbell, John Faas, Kevin Houston, Matt Mason, Tom Ratzlaff, and Heath Robinson—were locked and loaded on a CH-47 helicopter that was approaching a landing zone in Wardak Province when an insurgent-fired rocket-propelled grenade struck the aft rotor blade, causing the CH-47 to crash into a dry creek bed and explode. Everyone on board was killed: thirty U.S. forces and seven Afghan soldiers.