[Glaslyn] Brian Smith (aka Friedrich von Konigsberg)

[M TURNAGE]

I found this on the Baylor website

Baylor Law Grad Brian Smith Killed By Sniper In Iraq
July 12, 2004
by Alan Hunt

Faculty and staff at Baylor Law School remembered with fondness the quiet, 
polite student who received his law degree during commencement exercises on 
Feb. 5, 2000. The graduate, Brian Smith, was “always polite and professional 
in my dealings with him,” said Law School Registrar Jerri Cunningham. “He 
was a good student.” Faculty members endorsed her comments, recalling the 
dedicated student in their classes.
Smith’s career in the legal profession seemed to mirror his attitude and 
determination as a law student. After law school, he started his own 
practice in his home town of McKinney and then moved to Austin to work as a 
successful labor and employment law attorney. But a year later, Smith 
surprised everyone by his decision to join the Army. His mother, Linda 
Smith, said her son was fascinated with mechanized armor.
Last week, at the age of 30, the promising lawyer-turned-soldier paid the 
ultimate sacrifice when he was shot by a sniper while commanding a tank in 
Iraq. Smith, who was married, was serving as a 2nd Lt. and a platoon leader 
with Company A, First Battalion, 34th Armor. He was commissioned in the Army 
in June 2003 and had been stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas before deployment 
to Iraq in January. Smith was the 38th soldier from Fort Riley to die in 
Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
The Baylor law grad and former Eagle Scout died July 2 while checking the 
tread on his tank at a routine stop during a patrol in Habbaniyah, a town 
about 50 miles west of Baghdad. An officer who served with him in Iraq said 
Smith could have told a private to check the tracks for him when he was 
shot, but he insisted on doing it himself. He said it was typical of Smith, 
who preferred to lead by example. According to reports, Smith had raised his 
arm as if to check the suspension on the tank when the sniper shot him under 
the arm, where his bulletproof vest would not have protected him.
Smith used to email a group of his friends weekly to let them know what was 
going on. In his last email before he died, he described how bomb-making 
materials were discovered in an Iraqi house during a patrol, following a 
mirror flashing incident from the second story window of the house. Smith 
recalled how he was pouring with sweat in “brutal” heat when he saw the 
flashes directed at his tank from the window. He said he was convinced the 
flashes were designed to help the resistance against the U.S. troops.
“We waited,” he wrote. “Maybe whoever it was would notice that the tank’s 
cannon was no longer looking down the road but was now pointing directly at 
him. Maybe he would realize that this is not a game. Maybe, just maybe, he 
would realize that we were hot and tired and terribly, so terribly 
frustrated with this place and these people that we would respond to even 
the slightest provocation with enthusiastic and brutal violence.

Or maybe not.

About five minutes later it came again. Flash.

Flash.”

The tank crew fired at the house after that, and Smith wrote that soldiers 
who went into the house found a buried cache of bomb-making equipment. They 
took the owner of the house into custody.
Six days after he sent the email, Smith was dead.
Expressing his sorrow on behalf of the Baylor Law School family, Law Dean 
Brad Toben said, “We were so saddened to learn of Brian's death in combat. 
His courage, heroism and sacrifice are so inspiring to all, but the cost of 
this tragic loss of his life and the loss suffered by his wife, parents, 
family and friends is without measure.”
Survivors include Smith’s wife, Kathleen Mary Carroll-Smith of Austin; his 
mother, Linda Smith, and father, William M. Smith, both of McKinney; and his 
sister, Erin M. Smith of Austin. A funeral was held July 10 in McKinney, 
followed by burial there. A memorial service was held in Austin on July 11.

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