The story of seven young men

Glens Falls, New York, has a long tradition of patriotism, dating back to the American Revolution. For more than 200 years, it has sent men off to war — and many did not return.  But history alone could not prepare Nathan Brown’s mother for unexpected visitors the night of Easter Sunday, 2004.

Kathy Brown, Nathan Brown's mother: The doorbell rang, all the lights were off outside, cause it was ten o’clock. I heard my daughter holler to me and I got up and got as far as the kitchen and I froze. And she looked at me and I said, “Let this be a lie.” And she started crying, and she goes, “There’s a military man and a police officer at the door.”

Tom Brokaw: And what did they say?

Kathy Brown: I don’t know. I didn’t hear a word the man said to me, not a word. I saw my husband falling apart at the front door. I don’t even know, I just blacked it out. I didn’t know until the gentleman handed me a piece of paper and I read the piece of paper and all kinds of things started going through my mind. "Where was he? Did he suffer? Was it really him, you know? How’d he look?" I think the biggest one was that I wasn’t there, I wasn’t with him.

In the midst of trying to manage their grief, Kathy and her husband Ricky felt a need to share their story. 

Ricky, father: He was my son, my wife’s son, and he had brothers and sisters and he still has brothers still left over in Iraq. I’m deeply going to miss the boy, he’s not a boy no more, he’s a man.

Nathan’s fiancée Sara tried to compose herself but it was so, so hard.

Sara: Nathan was a great guy. He was my best friend, he was my fiancé and he loved his country, his family and all of his friends very much. I hope the best to all of them who are over there now.

Nathan’s good-bye video was no longer “just in case.” Now, it was painfully real.

Partially to honor her son and to draw attention to what happened, Kathy told reporters they were welcome to come to the airport when Nathan’s body was flown in to Albany.  She says while she never wavered in her support of the troops, she questioned the war from the beginning. 

Brown: I figure, on TV we should see the bodies coming in. Remind our president, you know, we’re not a number, what’s going on over there.

These are not familiar public scenes in this war: caskets being flown home, this ritual of sadness and honor. Nathan Brown was the first infantry soldier from the New York Army National Guard to be killed in combat since World War II.

Dateline NBC Nathan Brown's body is arrives and is greeted by family and friends.

Reporter Thom Randall, Post-Star reporter: There was an incredible outpouring of grief, and people lined the streets from here to Saratoga. And people turned out and put signs on tractors and buildings and saluted and there was a lot of grief. 

Brokaw:  How did it affect you to know what happened to this group of young people, since you’d interviewed them just before they left and saw them in all their kind of nervous innocence?

Randall: It affected me and I felt a sense of grief along with them.  And—

Brokaw:  It’s still hard to think about it.

Randall: Yeah.

INTERACTIVE U.S. military deaths in Iraq

Wounded and feelings of helplessness
Meanwhile guitarist Rob Hemsing, one of Nathan Brown’s buddies in the Nighthawk platoon, was struggling with the fallout from the attack.

For months, he was treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. In the first few weeks alone, Rob underwent almost 20 complicated surgeries. He lost a total of 4 fingers.  Rob was also on pain medication that had a powerful side effect: It numbed his emotions.

Rob Hemsing:  One day, I just realized that I need to deal with this. And I refused all the medication. And, you know, I pulled the morphine out, wouldn’t allow myself to have it. And then it was like a freight train. It just ran me over. And I remember crying for three or four days straight and not being able to stop.

Over the next few months, Rob would find himself in close proximity to two of his pals from the platoon who would also wind up at Walter Reed. Ken Comstock’s skull was shattered in almost 500 places when he drove over a roadside bomb. The soldier who had been ribbed for having a “pretty face” was now disfigured. Chad Byrne’s leg was almost torn off when a suicide car bomb exploded just yards from him. The young athlete who lived for making the winning jump shot was facing the probability that he would never play ball again.

Of the seven friends who had arrived in Iraq just half a year earlier, only three, Pete, Tim and Andy, remained there uninjured.

Andy Flint:  I was starting to think they were going after my friends. That’s really all we kept thinking. We were kind of like, this thing’s got to end soon.

Thousands of miles from their platoon, Rob, Ken and Chad spent months at Walter Reed slowly healing and wrestling with their thoughts. 

Hemsing: All of a sudden, in your head — flashes. What if they just got hit? You know, what if Pete’s gone right now, and you don’t even know it yet, and there’s nothing you can do, being here, to stop it, or to help the situation at all.

Kathy Brown's new mission
Kathy Brown shared that sense of helplessness, but she was determined to do something. She could not bring her son Nathan back, but she could demand answers. She could try to shed light on a problem she felt had not been addressed. Why had Nathan not been fully protected while on a dangerous mission?

Brown: My son was killed in a 5-ton truck. Where’s his armor?

Kathy understood that Nathan might not have survived even if he had been riding in an armored Humvee as opposed to a 5-ton open truck. Still, the possibility that his death could have been prevented tormented her.

Brown: We just started pestering and sending letters and just pounding on our government on why our soldiers were over there with no armor. And there was $88 billion, what was it spent on?

As she investigated the issue, she discovered the problem was widespread. Soon it would make headlines when a National Guard soldier from another unit confronted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about armor shortages.

Kathy was pleased that the matter was getting national attention. But she worried that there wouldn’t be a quick fix.

On New Year’s Eve 2004, Kathy attended a coming home ceremony for Nathan’s old outfit, the Nighthawk platoon, and others in the company. She wanted to see the good friends who’d gone to war with her son and who were now back from Iraq. 

These soldiers, and the ones recovering at Walter Reed, had survived combat. But now they faced a different challenge, a more personal battle... trying to resume the lives they had left behind.

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