Nevada’s Republican U.S. Senate nominee, Ret. Army Capt. Sam Brown, joined Sirus XM’s Breitbart News Saturday, where he discussed his new book, Alive Day: Finding Hope and Purpose After Losing Everything, which chronicles the fateful day he was severely burned on the battlefield in Afghanistan and how he found meaning in the midst of it.
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle asked Brown about precisely what an “Alive Day” is.
“An Alive Day is something that … I heard of out of the Wounded Warrior community,” Brown said. “And it’s the day that we all sort of celebrate that we could have, should have, you know, expected to die on the battlefield, but we didn’t, you know, either due to miraculous circumstances, or, our fellow service members getting to us and, either, in my case, smothering flames, you know; for others, it’s, you know, getting tourniquets on before they bleed out, or whatever. So it’s a type of a new birthday.”
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Brown said that he treats and celebrates his Alive Day like his birthday, and his actual birthday does not carry the same importance for him.
“So my Alive Day was 16 years ago this month,” Brown said. “It’s a day that I was in Afghanistan, I was a young infantry platoon leader, and some other, you know, friendly forces from our unit came under fire, needed support, and, you know, just like any good military member ought to do is when you got friendlies under fire, you got to run to the sound of those guns and go, you know, provide support.”
It was on the way to provide support that Brown’s platoon hit a roadside bomb, killing one of his soldiers and wounding Brown and three others. He told Boyle that he found God while critically injured in the desert.
“In the midst of that, at 24 years old, you know, laying there in the, in the desert, thinking I was about to die, actually wanting death to help me escape the pain, that’s where I found God,” he said. “And that’s that’s where I found a new life when my soldiers came to me and yelled out to me that you know that, ‘Sir, I’ve got you,’ and then put themselves in harm’s way to smother those flames.”
Brown was medically evacuated to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. The intensive care unit is where Brown, who would undergo dozens of reconstructive surgeries, met Amy, a nurse with whom he would fall in love and marry.
“Amy worked in the ICU of the burn unit, and I, you know, had just come in, didn’t know her at all,” Brown explained. “In fact, she met me before I met her because I came in, you know, on a ventilator. I was intubated and, you know, unconscious. But as kind of the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, I eventually did meet her.”
It was at his “most vulnerable” that Amy was there for him.
“This was kind of the lowest point of my life. I was basically in bandages from head to toe every day,” Brown recalled. “I could barely feed myself. I couldn’t bathe or change my dressings at all. So just, you know, the most vulnerable, weakest point I could be, as well as having just lost my personal identity. I mean, my face was burned so severely that it was scarred and ended up requiring, you know, in total, I had over 30 surgeries over my whole body… for reconstruction. And in the midst of that, Amy, you know, she was there and loved me and supported me when it was hard to see how anyone could love me.”
The Browns have been married for fifteen years and have three children: two sons, ages thirteen and nine, and an eleven-year-old daughter.
“She’s just an incredible woman, a woman of God, and served her country, both in the hospital there as well as in Iraq in ’09 and ’10, and just my best friend and also just a key part of this campaign for Senate here with us,” Brown said.
Boyle asked Brown how he would apply lessons he learned from his Alive Day and recovery in the U.S. Senate if he defeats Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) in November.
“One of the lessons I took off the battlefield was the life I live is not my own, and… that doesn’t appear to be a common perspective for some folks in D.C. as well as, you know, realizing that the mission is bigger than any individual,” Brown said. “We’ve got a mission to accomplish here, to serve our fellow Americans, to save this country, to be, you know, a leader in this world, to, you know, help the world find peace through strength, and so these are some of the things I distilled out and that I hope to be able to take to Washington, DC, on behalf of Nevadans after this election.”
Brown also emphasized he has learned hope can be found in even the most difficult and arduos struggles and conflicts.
“Yes, I went through a very, you know, literally, fiery crucible, but all of us go through some form of suffering, and that’s really the bigger point of the book, Alive Day, is we all at some point find ourselves at some sort of life-changing moment, something unexpected, some form of suffering,” he noted. “Sometimes it’s internal and quiet and hidden, and sometimes it’s really visible, like my wounds. But we can find hope, we can find peace, and we can find purpose in the midst of that. And so I just encourage everyone listening, whether it’s you or someone you know, this book can be an encouragement.”
Alive Day is available for purchase on Amazon.
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