Baumholder Troops Honor Medic Who Died

Seth Robbins/S&S
A soldier salutes a photo of Sgt. Brandon Augustus, a medic with the 47th Forward Support Battalion, during a memorial in Baumholder, Germany. Augustus died Dec. 11.

Baumholder Troops Honor Medic Who Died

By Seth Robbins, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Saturday, December 20, 2008

BAUMHOLDER, Germany — Sgt. Brandon Augustus crossed out the days on a dry-erase board, keeping the private countdown as a reminder of when he would leave Iraq and return to his wife and 4-year-old son.

It wasn’t that Augustus, a 29-year-old medic known to his fellow soldiers as "Knuckles," wasn’t interested in his duties; his photo graced the Army values poster that hung in the headquarters of the 47th Forward Support Battalion. He simply missed his wife, Angela.

"He would go without sleep just to e-mail her or get in touch with her on the phone," said 1st Sgt. Melissa McFrazier from Baghdad, where she is deployed.

Augustus and his wife were reunited in early December when he returned on rest and recuperation leave. But their happy reunion did not last long. Brandon Augustus collapsed on the floor of their home Dec. 11, and was later pronounced dead by a German doctor.

Augustus, of Baton Rouge, La., was in good physical condition. Officials said he died of natural causes, but a cause of death was not released because it is still under investigation.

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