Iraq war claims Gulfport native

The South Mississippi Sun Herald

March 18, 2008

SOLDIER KILLED

Candice Brown won't forget the silly faces her husband made to make her laugh, the 25 Christmas letters he sent from Iraq to first-graders at her school, the constant reminders through phone calls and e-mail that he loved her, that she was his Cinderella.

'There is a part in my heart that is gone because that part of my heart... was him,' the 27-year-old said. 'The biggest part of it is gone because he's not here.'

Sgt. Lerando Brown Jr., 27, a Gulfport native, was killed in Balad, Iraq, on Friday, the National Guard solider succumbing to a gunshot wound to his chest. He was with the 288th Sapper Co., based in Houston, Miss., and his wife knows no other details about his death or whether he was on a mission.

Candice Brown last spoke to her husband at 5:56 a.m. Friday. In the 15-minute conversation, he asked about her recent doctor's appointment, what his 6-year-old stepson was up to, and about the latest news from Poplarville, where they shared a home.

The next evening two military officers were at her doorstep. She erupted in tears as one of them said: 'I'm sorry for the loss of your husband.'

'I couldn't do anything but cry,' she said. 'I couldn't believe that. I was like, 'I just talked to him Friday morning and this cannot be true.'

'It has been rough,' she said. 'I have to take it day by day. I have the Lord on my side.'

Lerando Brown, who could play piano by ear and often performed in church, enlisted after attending Harrison Central High. His family earlier this week learned of his recent promotion to sergeant.

'That was something that he was really, really working hard at to get, and he received that,' Candice Brown said. 'The military was something that he loved, that he wanted to really do.'

The two met at a community college, where she was studying child development. They became fast friends and kept in touch.

But a spark soon ignited, and last May the couple was married; her father, the Rev. Jimmy Richardson, performed the ceremony.

Brown was so nervous after he asked Richardson for Candice's hand in marriage he stood by a pecan tree for 30 minutes, said Janie Richardson, Candice's mother. He desperately wanted Candice to be his wife before he went to war.

'It's one of those things that really, really made chills go up my spine,' Janie Richardson said.

After the wedding the couple shared a week together before he flew to Wisconsin for training, and then to Iraq for his first tour.

Lerando Brown has a 7-year-old son from a previous marriage, and Candice Brown is the mother of a 6-year-old son. The Browns were planning to buy a new home big enough for the four, 'and just be together for the rest of our lives.'

The funeral is scheduled for March 26 at noon at Harts Baptist Church in Poplarville.

'He was very special, kind, loving, caring, understanding,' Candice Brown said. 'He made me laugh.'

Another from

Mississippi lost

Before the Friday death of Sgt. Lerando Brown, the last soldier from the Coast killed in Iraq or Afghanistan was Army Maj. Michael Lee Green of Gautier; he was killed Jan. 7 in Afghanistan. Roughly 60 from Mississippi have been killed in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 36-year-old Green died when the Humvee he was in struck a roadside bomb.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War.

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