Army Capt. Joshua S. Lawrence

Died October 8, 2011 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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29, of Nashville, Tenn.; assigned to 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.; died Oct. 8 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds caused by a rocket propelled grenade. Also killed was Capt. Drew E. Russell.

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Carson widow can't believe hero won't be home

By Ryan Maye Handy, The (Colorado Springs, Colo.) Gazette via AP

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Brittany met her husband, Joshua Lawrence, in Las Vegas. It was a whirlwind February romance - like something out of novel, her friends tell her.

She was in town for business, busily ushering a VIP group out of a hotel and onto a golf course. He and some Army buddies were in town for a good time.

When Lawrence saw Brittany across the hotel lobby, he went straight to her and introduced himself.

“I'm Josh,” she remembers him saying.

She had noticed him, too.

“That's wonderful,” Brittany told him. “But I'm working.”

Still, Lawrence won her over with his broad smile and infectious laugh. They met later and danced the night away at a Blue Man Group concert. And they promised to stay in touch.

Four months later, on May 31, Brittany, 26, and Josh, 29, were married. On June 7, Lawrence, a Fort Carson soldier, left for Afghanistan.

Capt. Joshua Lawrence had been in the Army six years. He considered it the ideal profession.

“Joshua had an idea every day or every other week. He wanted to be an astronaut, or something else,” Brittany recalled. “Him joining the military allowed him to be good at something, and he was a really good soldier.”

Lawrence's insatiable thirst for knowledge fueled his enthusiasm for the military life, she said. He completed two tours in Korea, and traveled extensively around Asia, falling in love with Vietnam.

He was looking forward to his deployment to Afghanistan, his first with the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team in the 4th Infantry Division.

“He was so handsome in uniform,” Brittany said. “The first time I had to see him (in it), I almost passed out.”

With Lawrence's deployment just days after their wedding, the couple postponed their honeymoon, but spent as much time together as possible.

They decided on a honeymoon trip to Ireland upon Lawrence's return, and Brittany planned to surprise her husband with a castle tour. She planned to move to Colorado Springs in April - to be here when Lawrence returned from deployment.

At 6 a.m. Monday, Brittany was called to the door of her Kernersville, N.C., home by service members in uniform.

“They were at my porch telling me that he [Josh] was gone,” she said Wednesday morning.

Lawrence and Capt. Drew Russell, 25, was killed when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their unit, according to the Defense Department.

The brigade, in an email from Kandahar, said the captains were working with Afghan troops to plan a “peace summit” and were together on an Afghan military compound during the attack.

“Captains Lawrence and Russell were part of a command node helping the Afghans secure Kandahar City for a province-wide peace summit, and were located inside an Afghan army base,” brigade spokesman Maj. Kevin Toner said. “The command node received RPG and small arms fire, killing Lawrence and Russell. We are investigating the incident.”

The soldiers, both Bronze Star recipients, were serving in their first tour of Afghanistan. They were the 325th and 326th Fort Carson soldiers to be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the days since she learned of his death, Brittany has been overwhelmed by Lawrence's legacy: the people who loved him.

“All the soldiers are really torn up about it,” she said, as are his mother and two siblings, who were very close to him.

“I'll trade places with him,” she said through tears. “So people can hear his laugh and see his smile.”

She has relied heavily this week on the military community that has become her family.

“I had every wife's nightmare happen to me,” she said.

She hasn't been able to sleep, and is haunted by the thought the man she calls her hero won't be coming home.

“I thought the day [in June] I had to say goodbye to my soldier was the hardest day of my life,” she said. “I was wrong.”