Growing up in rural Wakefield, Nebraska, Wyatt Brown was surrounded by conventional agriculture. As a teen, he worked several jobs in the industry including walking and spraying bean fields and working at a local cattle feed yard, large-scale poultry farm and an egg production operation.
In December 2000, Brown, formerly of Scotland, enlisted in the Nebraska Army National Guard. Upon graduating from high school, he attended Basic Training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and was just three weeks into his training when 9/11 occurred. After four years of enlisted service, he transferred from Wayne State College in Nebraska and enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at the University of South Dakota where he studied military science and recreation management. He later commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army, graduated from USD in 2006 and returned to Fort Sill to attend the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course.
Brown went on to serve as a fire support officer with the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and as a platoon leader with the 1-320th Field Artillery Regiment. He was then deployed to Al Haswah and Baghdad City in Iraq from 2007-2008, and upon his return, completed the Field Artillery Captain’s Career Course and immediately reported to the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado. Brown was then deployed two more times, serving his second deployment in southern Iraq from 2010-2011, and his third and final deployment in Shah Joy, Afghanistan in 2012.
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