Albert Eger Brown, Burfy to his friends, was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He attended Charleston College during the time his older and larger brother, John, was a football star, and Burfy arrived at West Point with reputed football skills. This was a surprise to him and also to those who greeted new cadet Brown, for, though tall enough, he was mighty slim for a football player. It is said that the only time he was called from the bench to play in a regular season game he was found to be absent, having decided to go horseback riding instead.

 

Upon graduation he was commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry and served with the 4th Infantry at Vera Cruz, Mexico in 1913. Upon reassignment from Vera Cruz duty he and Jesse Sewell Weaver were married in Louisville, Kentucky and moved to Brownsville, Texas where he served as an Infantry company officer during 1914-1916 on the Mexican border. Later, he served in France with the 4th Division and with the 8th and 183rd Brigades in 1918.

 

Between World War I and II he was graduated from the Infantry School, the Command and General Staff School, the Army War College, the Navy War College and later was designated in official orders a constructive graduate of the National War College. During this period he had three tours on the General Staff, one in the Hawaiian Department and two in the War Department. In 1940 he suffered the tragic loss of his only son, Bert (Albert Eger Brown, Jr., USMA 1940).

 

During World War II General Brown led a successful task force ashore on the island of Attu and commanded successively the XXII Corps and the 5th Infantry Division in the European Theater of Operations. In 1945 he brought the 5th Division to Fort Campbell, Kentucky and in 1946 he was transferred to duty in Korea.

 

General Brown took command of the 6th Infantry Division upon arrival in Pusan and later was transferred to Seoul as deputy commanding general, XXIV Corps and US Army Forces in Korea. For several months, in the absence of the commanding general, he was designated in orders as the commanding general, XXIV Corps and USAFIK. He was appointed chief of the American Delegation USUSSR Joint Commission charged with fulfilling the United States mission in Korea based on the Moscow Decision, Seoul, Korea.

 

He retired from active duty 30 June 1949 and settled in Asheville, North Carolina where he and his wife lived happily for twenty years and then moved to Nashville, Tennessee to be near their daughter and grandchildren.

 

Jean Van Volkenburgh Robert H. Van Volkenburgh, Jr.