Brian P Hause

Friends and colleagues of Staff Sgt. Brian Hause, who died Oct. 23 at Joint Base, Balad, remembered his generosity in training younger airmen and his love for his children in a memorial ceremony at the base Monday.

Hause, an assistant noncommissioned officer-in-charge in the 332nd Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Phase Dock, was found unresponsive on the floor of his room at about 9 p.m. Medics transported him to the Air Force Theater Hospital here but could not revive him. He was pronounced dead at approximately 9:30 p.m. His death was not combat related.

“I have to be honest with you — during times like this, even though my shepherd says I shall not want, I find myself wanting,” Chaplain (Capt.) Douglas Collins said during the ceremony. “I find myself wanting the friendship of the one who’s gone.”

Hause, 29, was dedicated to his job, said Maj. Brian Godfrey, the 332nd EMXS commander. He was a good trainer, always willing to teach junior airmen more about aircraft maintenance.

“A day or two after Brian’s arrival, I went to the phase section where he worked and met him and his co-workers,” Godfrey said. “It was clear to me after spending just a few moments with them that they were a tightly knit group.”

“He had an uncanny ability to make the whole section smile,” recalled Staff Sgt. Amos Tolson, Hause’s supervisor. “No matter how dirty, tired, hungry or sweaty we were, he knew what to say. Every day, he was always the first one there and the last to leave. On the days when we were rebuilding jets, and it looked like that jet would never fly again, Hause would make it happen.”

Hause joined the Air Force in December 2001 and deployed to Balad from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., with his unit in early October. He leaves two children, Alexis and Cody.

At the end of the service, Godfrey presented him with a posthumous Air Force Commendation Medal and Iraq Campaign Medal.