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VETERAN Spotlight
Brigadier General (retired)
Mitchell Brown
United States Army
What were the circumstances that got you into the military?
I had graduated high school and had no idea what I wanted to. My mother
frequently asked if I had decided where I was going to college. You can imagine
the shock on her face the evening I walked into the kitchen, where she was
preparing supper, and she asked again. My response was I had joined the
Army that day. My father only asked if I was sure that was what I wanted to do –
I said yes. My father retired from the Army five years earlier. He had landed at
Normandy, survived the Battle of the Bulge and three other major campaigns.
I could see he was concerned, since Vietnam was all in the news. However,
I can truthfully say he never encouraged me to join or not join.
What years did you serve and where?
My initial enlistment was from ‘69 thru ‘71. I trained at Fort Polk, Fort Knox, and
Fort Benning, and served overseas in Vietnam and Germany. I had planned on
becoming a helicopter pilot, but since there was a backlog at pilot school and it
would be 18 months before I started training, I decided to become a paratrooper,
thus insuring I would go to Vietnam. If I was going to serve, I was going to fulfill
my full duty as a soldier. During my following years in the military, I went to every
state and territory, except Guam, traveled to Central America, South America,
and much of Europe.
What was your biggest adjustment to military life?
It was really no adjustment for me. As the son of a career soldier, I had been
around it most of my life. I lived on and around military instillations, packed and
moved numerous times, changed schools each time (sometimes in the middle
of the year and three times one year}, and had to leave friends and make new
ones every time. On active duty I knew the officers and non-commissioned
officers (NCOs) arose every morning and put on their pants just as my father
had done. I wasn’t intimidated, but I still performed as was expected of me.
Describe a standout experience while in the military.
There are far too many for me to claim one more than others. The military offers
you many opportunities to excel and achieve recognition, but most of all to gain
self-esteem and self-confidence. I know I still find it hard to believe I went from a
private to a general officer. Sure there were good times and bad times and in
some situations bad times and worse times. It is hard to explain how you remember,
so vividly, a moment of laughter that occurred in a terrible environment—just as
you remember trying to care for a wounded buddy. I remember the exhilaration
of jumping from a plane in the middle of the night with a weapon and a hundred
pounds of equipment strapped to me, with no guarantees about what was below.
There is one experience from Vietnam that I have told more than once. Most
veterans are not much on war stories. In fact, the sign at the entrance to our
ranger compound said, “No War Stories Please”. I will briefly describe what
occurred. I was a member of a ranger company and assigned to a six-man
hunter-killer team. When you were so few, making contact with a large enemy
force did not leave much hope of a good outcome, and that is what happened
on this mission. We had engaged a point element of a larger force, searched the
bodies, and took off through the brush carrying anything of intelligence value.
The same afternoon, we had contact again, but it was not intended. It was then
we knew we were being hunted by a larger force. We moved through the evening
and after putting fresh camouflage on our faces and hands, started out again at
morning’s first light. We were moving very cautiously, as the enemy appeared to
be everywhere. In no time at all, they were actually pursuing us through a draw
between a river and a steep hill. As we moved, we remained alert as to what was
ahead, and what we saw was not good. We could see a large number of enemy
soldiers coming down a ridge to our front, which would naturally cut us off.
Bad guys in front and bad guys behind is not a desirable situation. Realizing we
could not get away, we set up in a small circle, with our rucksacks in front of us.
There was no position available for us to use in the defense, so this circle of six
men with rucksacks, and in thick brush, was going to be our last stand. I remember
looking around at my teammates. They were sitting calmly waiting for the
inevitable. I remember the grins I saw as our eyes met. All of them had that look
on their face—we knew when we volunteered for the rangers this could happen.
I looked to my immediate left and saw my friend there was praying to beat heck.
Observing him, I thought that was probably a good idea. I remember looking up
at a little puffy white cloud, the only one saw. I made a lot of promises, if He would
just get us out of this. About this same time, we heard the bad guys closing in on
us. We readied ourselves and they moved in on us. I had my sights on one not
more than ten to fifteen feet from me. When he looked my way, I knew he was
going down. As he moved around from my right to left, I kept expecting to hear
one of the others open fire. I had not pulled the trigger yet, because he had not
yet seen me.
60 • February 2019