
When Henry Brown left for the war, his mom made sure the onetime Sunday school teacher from Natchez, Miss., packed his Bible. Every time they talked, she’d ask him whether he was praying and reading the Good Book. She raised him to stand strong, but to lean on God.
The 22-year-old Army corporal died April 8 from injuries he received in an enemy rocket attack south of Baghdad.
Now his mother is trying to practice what she always preached to her only child. “I didn’t have him long, but I thank God for the years I did have him,” said Rhonda James-Brown, 50. “I’m crying, but I have an inner peace. I just know that Henry is with the Lord and his grandma.”
Brown graduated in 1999 from Natchez High School. He joined the Junior ROTC in high school, planning...