Memories About Dave

Jeff "Goldy" Goldfinger, Navy Buddy

This is Dave's Eulogy, given at Arlington National Cemetery on March 13, 2003.

Dave Brown - Renaissance Man

My name is Jeff Goldfinger – the “Goldy” you may have heard mention of. I first met Dave in the Officer’s Club in September of 1985. He had just reported to Naval Aviation’s Carrier Airwing Fifteen as a flight surgeon. I was riding around in the back of E-2 Hawkeyes as an air controller back then.

For those of you that don’t know anything about flight surgeons, besides your commanding officer, they are the most feared men in all of military aviation. A flight surgeon has this magical power to see right through our lies and deceit and find that blocked sinus or fluid filled lung or overstressed psyche and then the gig is up. We have been discovered. We’re grounded!

So that’s how we met. I walked straight up to him, like the cowardly lion in his first encounter with Dorothy, and started talking to him. And just like Dorothy, Dave immediately took pity on me and that was the start of an 18 year friendship.

We spent the next three years together in San Diego. We were housemates for part of that time and he would frequently cry on my shoulder about his current career crisis. He was doing the doctor thing back then, performing dozens upon dozens of physicals on some of the healthiest individuals this country can produce and I must tell you that he was a bit frustrated by the monotony of it all. He was questioning whether “physician” was his true calling.

But one day, he came home from work, bounded through the front door, delightfully animated. So I asked him “What’s goin’ on.”

“Goldy” he shouted with pride, “I got to resuscitate my first full cardiac arrest!”

I guess you have to be a doctor to understand.

Fast forward a couple of years and Dave and I find ourselves in Fallon, Nevada, together – a town where the humidity is measured in single digits and a night on the town is something called “Pigs in Space.” The carrier guys know what I’m talkin’ about. In San Diego, I used to spot him when he was learning to fly a hang glider. Here we are, years later, and we’re dropping bombs together from an A-6 down at Nellis. Let me say that again, Doctor Dave and Goldy the air controller are dropping ordnance from a Navy jet flying over an Air Force bombing range while a guy on the ground is designating the target with a laser spot. You have to be a military aviator to understand the irony of all that.

From Fallon, we both moved to Pax River, Maryland, where a year later he was selected for the astronaut program. To sum it up, Dave went from hang gliding to shuttle flying and throughout it all, he allowed me to live vicariously through him. I was there at the bottom of the hill as he glided down from the top of Black Mountain in San Diego. And I was there in the bleachers at the Cape on February 1st as he glided down from the top of the atmosphere. But unlike that day in San Diego, I wasn’t able to tell him how great a landing he had just made. So I’m grateful to Dave’s family for allowing me the opportunity to honor Dave by sharing a few thoughts with you today.

As many of you know, Dave sent out a final email the day before the scheduled landing. It was the most magnificent compilation of his sixteen day experience but more importantly it expressed a hope for a peaceful future. The email was sent to a few dozen addressees – obviously an arbitrary limitation imposed by the shuttle’s computer system because as you can see from the turnout here today, he would have sent it to each and every one of you if he had had the chance.

Anyway, that email started the most wonderfully therapeutic chain of emails from all the people he touched over the years, from all walks of life, from a wide variety of academic, social, and economic circles – many of whom are in this audience today. So with your collective permission, I’d like to share some snippets from those emails because they will forever cement the image we all have of this “Renaissance Man” that we call Dave Brown.

Let me start by paraphrasing Doug T.’s letter: “Many of the other pilots like to say that after Doc got his pilot’s wings, he forgot that he was also a flight doc. It was said that if you had a broken leg, Doc would tell you to take two aspirins and don’t call him in the morning ‘cause he’d be out flying.”

Here’s another memory. “He approached his training with an awareness and appreciation of the difficulty and the risks involved yet always with a smile and sense of enjoyment, even glee.” You would think that statement was written by Jack N., one of his NASA instructors and dearest friends, or maybe Jay S., one of his Navy instructors. But it was really written by Heidi M., a fellow gymnast, talking about Dave’s early days in the Circus Kingdom.

Debby R. wrote: "When I got divorced Dave sent me a very caring letter that I carried around with me for a long time in my purse. It helped tremendously because I knew someone cared.” I’m here to tell you that he wasn’t just a good listener to Debby. He was like that to everyone but especially to me. As 51% of the human population will tell you, men have a hard time talking openly and honestly with women, much less other men. Well Dave was one of my sounding boards and, like Debby, I will miss him dearly.

So what was Dave like to some of the others out there? He was a fellow medical student to Gordon, a gymnast to Heidi, a unicyclist to Trudy and Dave H., a juggler to Jessica H., a clown to Robert M., an intern to Jane B., a doctor to “Dragon,” a flight surgeon to Airwing Fifteen, a dual designator to Bud L., a biker to Zip and Nancy U., a tail dragger to Al S., and “Astronomer Dave” to Noel R..

Let me tell you a little bit more about Noel. A few years ago, Ms. Laura F., a teacher for special needs kids who was starting a lesson plan on astronomy and asked her sister Gloria if Dave could send a signed picture or something similarly insignificant to an astronaut but immensely valuable to Laura’s kids. Well a picture just wasn’t enough for Dave. He had to get involved. So, in classic Dave fashion, he contacted Laura and asked her how he could help. And from that austere beginning evolved a friendship between two budding astronomers.

Well, “Astronomer Noel” is here with us today, getting ready to graduate from high school – an accomplishment that even he will tell you seemed out of reach just a few short years ago. Dave understood that the future of this great country of ours lies squarely in the laps of all the Noels out there. So I say to you Noel, look around. Even though Dave may no longer be here to help you, don’t hesitate to call upon this room full of his friends if you ever need anything.

This was the measure of Dave’s character. It was never about him but always about the other person. Never once did he ask for attention or recognition or glory. He was the most humble over achiever we have ever known.

Well today, it’s about you Dave. All of this. For you. Our Renaissance Man who was a lecturer to Fields R., a digital photographer to Triple Nickel, a filmmaker to his Columbia crewmates, a storyteller to Bestor C., a listener to Debby R., “Uncle” Dave to my daughters Jami and Jacey, and a President to his colleagues in the International Association of Military Flight Surgeon Pilots.

Let me pause for a moment on that last one – the International Association of Military Flight Surgeon Pilots. I want you to think about how much motivation, dedication, and determination it takes to become just a member of that elite organization, much less their President. The rigorous academics, the sleepless hours in the hospital emergency room, the night landings in his A-6 Intruder aboard an aircraft carrier that’s sailing in the middle of an endless, pitch black sea. You can’t just throw words like doctor and pilot around. You have to imagine the relentless drive that Dave felt inside – the drive that unfortunately left him to be, understandably so, the quintessential bachelor to Anne and Brenda.

But I guess I’m somewhat grateful he wasn’t married because two nights before the launch, Dave took me on a tour of the shuttle, perched on the launch pad, just itching to go fly. For the next two hours, we climbed every ladder, traversed every gantry and said hello to just about every NASA technician that was readying the lady Columbia. It’s during this tour that Dave stressed to me over and over again, that he was supremely confident in the maturity of the program. He was one hundred percent certain that every bolt, every wire, every checklist item was exactly as it should be. But most importantly, he was so very confident in those ordinary technicians that have extraordinary job descriptions – like Thermal Protection System Engineer and Space Shuttle Main Engine Technician. So Mr. O’Keefe and Mr. Dittemore, as you both have said, and as Dave would certainly agree, let’s figure out what went wrong, fix it and get on with it.

By the way, along with me and Dave were his two other Blue Team crewmates, Mike and his wife Sandy and Willie and his wife Lani. Now you see why I was glad he wasn’t married. Instead of that late night tour with the other spouses, I would’ve been back at the hotel watching “Joe Millionaire” or something.

So that almost says it all about our Dave Brown – Renaissance Man. But not quite, because Dave was also a fellow landlord to Jo Ellen M., a student to Jay S., a housemate to Janet P., Jim B., Charlie B., Brenda S. and Jane B., a best friend to Tom B., a member of the vestry to the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church congregation, a cousin to Paula M. and Nancy U., an Uncle to Danny & Casey Brown, a brother to Doug, a son to Paul and Dot, and a hero to millions like me.

Not just a hero because of the way he perished but rather because of the life he lived and the lives he touched. And today, I will be there when we will lay my best friend’s body to rest … on a quiet hillside … in a plot of land that overlooks a city of memorials … dedicated to thousands of other heroes … none of them quite like Dave.

Thank you all for listening and may your god bless you and keep you.