Army Sgt. 1st Class Scott J. Brown

Died May 18, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

33, of Windsor, Colo.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.; died May 18 in Baghdad of wounds sustained when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using an improvised explosive device and small-arms fire. Also killed was Spc. Marquis J. McCants.

---

Colorado soldiers killed in Iraq

The Associated Press

WINDSOR, Colo. — Two Army sergeants from Colorado have died from combat injuries in Iraq, the military said Monday.

Sgt. 1st Class Scott J. Brown, 33, died Friday in Baghdad after his unit was hit with an improvised bomb and small-arms fire, the Defense Department said. The Army listed his hometown as Windsor.

Defense officials said Sgt. Ryan J. Baum, 27, died Friday in Karmah, Iraq, after his unit was shot at. Baum’s hometown was Aurora.

Baum was assigned 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.

Brown’s wife, Delilah Brown, lives in Fayetteville, N.C., outside Fort Bragg, his home post. She said he was on his third tour of duty in Iraq and had a passion for his job.

“Scott loved the Army. He loved his job,” she said. “He was just unbelievable.”

Brown had a son, Taylor, with high school sweetheart Kristen Leedom of New Berlin, Wis. Leedom said she and Taylor would miss Brown terribly.

“He was the kind of guy who lived on the edge,” Leedom said. “He was a fun guy, always down to earth.”

Brown had returned to the U.S. for a three-week break in December. When he left he told his wife not to expect him back until January 2008.

“All my prayers and thoughts were with him every morning, every night, every time I talked to him online or wrote him e-mails every day,” Delilah Brown said. “He was the backbone of my family. He was my life.”

Also killed in the incident was Spc. Marquis J. McCants, 23, of San Antonio.

Both were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg.

---

Brother of soldier killed in Iraq urges mourners to find hope

The Associated Press

BROOKFIELD, Wis. — The older brother of a soldier killed in Iraq earlier this month urged mourners at his funeral to find hope and love, not hate or anger, in the death.

“He was a man who would not have me feel hopeless, a man who did not know fear,” Michael Brown said May 29 of Army Sgt. 1st Class Scott Brown, 33, who was killed May 18 while on patrol in Baghdad when his unit was hit by an explosive and small-arms fire.

“On my best day I can hardly manage to be half the man my brother Scotty was,” Michael Brown added.

Scott Brown, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, was memorialized at Becker Ritter Funeral Home in Brookfield and Wood National Cemetery in Milwaukee.

The graduate of Brookfield Central High School joined the Army in 1998.

“He loved the challenge of the Army,” his sister, Debbi Hood, said. “Anything that he thought was hard to do and that people would say was impossible to do, he would make sure he got it done.”

He served tours in Kosovo, Kuwait and Iraq before meeting and marrying his wife, Delilah, his brother said. Scott Brown then was sent to Afghanistan and Iraq twice more.

Hood said that, despite her brother’s serious commitment to the military and his country, he was the family clown.

“He could take a serious room and make us all rolling on the floor in minutes,” she said. “He was a big kid.”