Funeral services were held on Wednesday for Billy Brown, an Alaska Native guardsman who died in an accident while he was preparing to go to Iraq.

Brown, 54, was from the Inupiaq village of Barrow. He volunteered to lead his National Guard detachment to Iraq after Alaska Natives guardsmen, for the first time since World War II, were called to serve in the war.

But before Brown could make it overseas, he was killed in a vehicle accident in southern Mississippi along with another soldier. Two others were injured.

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Hero's farewell (The Anchorage Daily News 8/3)
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