• “If someone drops something, you help them pick it up.” Other golden words of wisdom were taught at opportune moments: “If somebody falls over, you offer them your hand.” “Would you like it if somebody called you that?” Upon noticing a kid being bullied on the playground, Larry would say, “If you don’t help, you’re no better than the bully.”Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown (Blehm, Eric) page 11
  • “Each weekday, the twins were dropped off with Shawn and had to make their way past the middle school handball courts in order to get to the elementary school. Any smaller kids within range would be bombarded with tennis balls hucked—and hucked hard—by older kids playing wall ball. “Adam would spread his arms out and side shuffle, guarding me, keeping me in close to him, so the balls couldn’t hit me,” says Manda. “He’d get hit a lot, but he wouldn’t flinch till he got me to safety.”Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown (Blehm, Eric) page 15
  • “One afternoon Adam showed up to help with practice, eyes red from crying. “What happened?” Shawn asked. Adam explained how a junior varsity player had cornered him in the locker room and given him a swirly—shoved his head into a toilet bowl and flushed. “It was disrespectful,” Adam said, staring at the ground. Lifting Adam’s chin up with his hand, Shawn said, “We’ll see what we can do about that later.” After practice, Shawn was driving them home when he noticed the JV player’s car parked outside the Busy B’s Café. He pulled over and, with Adam in tow, walked up to the booth where the kid was eating a burger with a buddy. Glancing up, the kid saw Adam and Shawn, and like a deer in the headlights, he froze. Shawn leaned in and stared him in the eye. “If you ever touch my little brother again,” said Shawn, loud enough for every patron in the restaurant to hear, “I will break both of your legs.” He stepped away and said again, “Both of them.” The café was silent. Avoiding Shawn’s ferocious gaze, the JV player nodded his head. Outside in the parking lot, Shawn put his arm around his little brother, who was still grinning. If Adam had looked up to Shawn before, from that day forward he was a giant.” Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown (Blehm, Eric) page 17
  • “During that eighth-grade year, Adam was hanging out with friends in front of the school one morning when a school bus pulled up and students poured out. Most of the kids headed to the front doors, but three boys stopped Richie Holden, who had Down syndrome, and taunted him by calling him names. Smaller than any of the bullies, Adam nevertheless marched over and stood in front of Richie. “If you want to pick on someone,” he said, “you can pick on me—if you think you’re big enough.” “The three backed off,” Richie’s father, Dick Holden, says, recounting the story as told to him by Richie and his older sister, Rachel. “Adam put his arm around Richie and walked with him through the door, then all the way to his class. Richie never forgot that, and I remember thinking, That Brown boy—he’s something special.”Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown (Blehm, Eric) page 19
  • “Athletes can help reverse the scourge of bullying on middle school and high school campuses. They are on top of the status chain, set the trends, and too often are the perpetrators of the harassment. They can be models for tolerance.”  The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game(Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 284