Military Spouse Learns of Husband's Death on Facebook

Ariell Taylor-Brown (Photo courtesy NBC4i.com)

It’s happening more often with the growth of social media – a military family learns of the death of a loved one before official notice.

This time it was Ariell Taylor-Brown who learned of the death of her husband, Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown, two hours before Army soldiers arrived at her home with the official notice according to Columbus, Ohio station NBC4:

“I was told via Facebook,” said Taylor-Brown. “It was a girl in his platoon. She wrote to me and told me to call her immediately,” Taylor-Brown said.

Taylor-Brown called her, and the soldier told her of the death. Taylor-Brown, who has two children and is pregnant with the couple’s third was at home alone with the kids.

She told me over the phone, right in front of my kids and I completely had a meltdown. She wasn’t supposed to but I guess she took it on her own power to do it,” she said.

Staff Sgt. Brown had been in Afghanistan just a week, starting his fourth deployment, when he  was killed. Brown, was killed April 3 in Afghanistan after he died of wounds suffered in an IED attack according to milblogging.com.

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