When I was a youngster my Dad made sure that I spent a lot of time with his family on their farm outside of Marlin in Falls County, Texas. At that time, prior to WW II, rural farmers and ranchers in Texas didn’t have electricity, propane or butane. The Rural Electrification Agency didn’t arrive in Falls County until after the war.

Looking back I remember helping my Dad, draw water from the hand dug well and haul it the two hundred yards to the house. I remember filling the lanterns with coal oil. I remember the smokehouse with hams hanging around the vent hole in the tin roof and salt pork curing.

I remember us chopping fire wood for Grandma Bryan’s cook stove. If the pieces were too big she would send us both back out to re-split the wood with a stern command, “John H. and Jon, you know that those pieces are too big. Get yourselves back outside and do it right!” But the cobblers, fresh bread and rolls couldn’t be duplicated now. She was a magician with her wood stove! I remember her making lye soap in a huge black kettle and when it cooled washing my hands with it.

I remember finding my first arrowhead and looking around to be sure there weren’t any howling, Comanches around. I remember the first fish I caught in Pool Creek, bordering Grandma’s place. I remember the first covey of quail, exploding out of the fence line behind the peach orchard and how the whirr of their wings scared me, but how calm and sure my Dad and his brother, Roy, were when they were shooting them.

I remember my Dad patiently training me to shoot my first rifle, a Remington, Model 510, Targetmaster. I still have the old rifle and have trained two generation of Bryan children to shoot with it.

I remember climbing up into the peach trees and eating my fill of fresh, ripe peaches. I remember, as a lad of six, sneaking into Tom Norwood’s melon patch and appropriating one, almost as big as me. I remember the sting of the bull nettle that I ran into as I was hurriedly leaving the area.

I remember the outside toilet, a two holer complete with a Sears catalog, and having to check for black widows before you sat down. When you finished you had to drop a hand shovel full of lime through the hole on to the “pile”. A thankless job was cleaning out the outhouse! I don’t remember ever doing that chore.

One of Brad’s friends and a former commander of his wrote this very touching letter about Brad. He couldn’t attend the funeral because he was deployed in Afghanistan. At the funeral last Saturday, another friend of Brad’s, SFC Tim Albee, who last year helped us make the shooting range at the ranch, read the letter to all of the attendees.

“In August of 2006 I had the pleasure of meeting a man who would become one of the very beast friends I have ever had. This man was Brad Bryan, Bubba, to his family and friends. Bubba had already been through a lot when I met him. Multiple surgeries had left their mark: physical scars and an altered speech pattern. These physical effects were plainly visible, but what was also immediately evident was an inner strength that told me that this man had the courage and determination it took to look the devil himself in the eye and come out on top. I knew immediately that there was no quit in this man. That he had what it took to beat something like cancer, and for a while he did just that. You never heard him complain. He never doubted his faith in Jesus Christ, and he never compromised his dignity.”

You see Bubba comes from good, hearty Texas stock. Starting with his Father, Jon Bryan, Bubba’s lineage goes back six generations to the founding of this great State. He has the blood of pioneers, lawmen, Soldiers, farmers and ranchers running through his veins. Those were men who knew what it took to build something out of nothing, in the face of great hardship, and then make it thrive. Bubba was just like them. His integrity was beyond reproach. His courage was never questioned. He did the hard right and always shunned the easy wrong. Bubba was a man among men. He was my counsel when my path wasn’t clear. He was an example for me, an example of what a real man was made of, of what I and every other man around him should strive to be”

“Bubba was a great Soldier, one I was proud to have in my command. But it will never be his prowess as a Soldier that made him stand out. It was his spirit, the man that he was. It is his devotion to family and friends and his unwavering faith in Jesus Christ, even in the face of adversity, that makes him stand out. Bubba was my friend, one I love like a brother, and I will never forget him. Louis Lamour used a quote when describing men like Bubba. He said that a man like Bubba was “One to ride the river with”. Bubba there is not a river in all creation that I would not ride with you. I miss you, I love you, and I will see you in Heaven because I know that is exactly where you are.”