Pfc. Luke J. Brown death at Fort Bragg under investigation

Non-combat deaths hit home locally
Military casualties hit home
BY ELLEN BILTZ


Date published: 7/23/2008

BY ELLEN BILTZ


Army Pfc. Luke J. Brown loved life and loved people, his older brother Paul Brown said yesterday.

"He could always pick me up when I was down," he said.

Luke Brown, a 27-year-old soldier from Spotsylvania County, was found dead Sunday morning at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he was stationed.

Brown was one of two servicemen with links to the Fredericksburg area to die in the past week. Marine First Lt. Jason Mann was killed when a roof collapsed on him Thursday in Afghanistan.

Brown, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, joined the Army in January 2007.

His brother said yesterday that Brown always joked about his size as a paratrooper: he was 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 250 pounds.

"He would say he was always the last one out of the plane and the first one down,'" Paul Brown said. "He could always make a joke."
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