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Space Camp Scholarship Honors Young Sept. 11 Pentagon Attack Victim

"Robbed of your time, the world lost your love. Go forward into God's hands, little dude."
-- Patrick Mulligan, in a letter to CNN about 11-year-old Bernard Curtis Brown's death in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon.

Wednesday, September 4, 2002
By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service

The Military Child Education Coalition's Bernard Curtis Brown II Memorial NASA Space Camp Scholarship is named for an 11-year-old Washington, D.C., area military-connected child who was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when terrorists crashed it into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Image Credit: Courtesy Navy Chief Petty Officer
Bernard Curtis Brown.

"I knew he was a strong swimmer and I was sure he could do all the things they [Sustainable Seas Expeditions] wanted him to do," CPO Brown said. "The two kids from the other schools were selected because the teachers thought they could do whatever was expected of them, too. It just so happened that on that date, we talked about death," he recalled. "They're going to do kayaking and things inner city kids don't normally do. So I said, 'Son, be careful.' They'd put a disclaimer in the paperwork that said death could happen. But not in my wildest dreams did I think he'd die before he could get there."

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
His voice cracked and lips quivered as he fought back tears and tried to control his heartbroken emotions about the loss of his 11-year-old son in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon.

Struggling to speak recently to more than 350 attendees at the Military Child Education Coalition conference in San Antonio, Texas, Navy Chief Petty Officer Bernard Curtis Brown thanked the coalition for endowing the 2002 Bernard Curtis Brown II Memorial Space Camp Scholarship.

He announced the first scholarship recipient, Buck A. Tanner, 14, an 8th grader at the Department of Defense Education Activity's Central High School in London. Tanner won based on his essay stating why he should be selected; he was unable to attend the conference.

MCEC established the annual scholarship for a military child to attend the NASA Space Camp and the Brown family agreed to allow the organization to name the scholarship in memory of their son. The coalition and the family felt the scholarship is a fitting honor.

At the time of his death Brown was en route to California to participate in Sustainable Seas Expeditions, a National Geographic Society-funded marine research project at the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, near Santa Barbara.

Brown was in a Washington area party with two other students, three schoolteachers and two National Geographic Society staff members. They and the other 51 passengers and crew aboard American Airlines Flight 77 died when terrorist hijackers crashed the plane into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

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