[Steppes] [Fwd: [Glaslyn] Brian Smith (aka Friedrich von Konigsberg)]

Thu Jul 22 08:28:33 PDT 2004

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [Glaslyn] Brian Smith (aka Friedrich von Konigsberg)
From:    "M TURNAGE" <ceinwen7777777 at hotmail.com>
Date:    Thu, July 22, 2004 9:50 am
To:      Glaslyn at ansteorra.org
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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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Ches