Bryan Douglas "Doug" Brown (born 20 October 1948)[1] is a retired four-star United States Army general.

Brown joined the United States Army in 1967 as a private in the infantry and after graduating from Special Forces Qualification Course, he became a Green Beret.

Shortly after becoming the head of USSOCOM, in 2004, he was involved in the aftermath of the Pat Tillman friendly fire incident which culminated when he testified before the congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2007.

Losing interest in college, and with his father in Vietnam, he walked into a recruiting office and joined the army as an infantryman.

[8] In June 1978, Brown was assigned to the 158th Aviation Battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky flying Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks.

[4] In 1979, Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran and held the embassy staff hostage;[13] the first rescue operation, code-named Eagle Claw ended in failure due to equipment and coordination problems, culminating in the crash of a RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter into a parked C-130 Hercules in the Iranian desert, killing eight servicemen.

[10] President Carter meanwhile appointed the former Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral James L. Holloway, III, to head a commission to study the deficiencies revealed by the failure of Eagle Claw.

Among the presented findings was the fact that the military lacked aircraft and crews who were trained and prepared to perform these mission types.

[4] As a result of the night vision goggle training Brown asserted in a 2011 interview that "most of today's NVG tactics, techniques, and procedures as well as Black Hawk and Chinook modifications came directly from that mission.

"[4] Ultimately Operation Credible Sport did not come to fruition due to a peaceful resolution to the crisis where the hostages were released as a result of long negotiations.

[17][4] In the late 1980s, Brown led all U.S. aviation forces assigned to Operation Prime Chance, which provided escort security for American-flagged Kuwaiti tankers during the Iran–Iraq War.

[18][16] In 1988, he participated in Operation Mount Hope III, during which U.S. forces recovered a crashed Soviet-made Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter in Chad.

[16] Once in Chad the company flew two CH-47 Chinooks 490 nautical miles at night, without the use of navigational aids, to the crash site.

[17][12] Their missions during the operations included inserting and extracting Special Forces teams; resupplying SOF units; performing reconnaissance; and attacking pre-designated targets.

[17] During Brown's tenure as USSOCOM commander, he was involved in the aftermath of the Pat Tillman friendly fire incident that occurred in early 2004.

[22] He testified before the congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2007 about receiving a memo from Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then-commander of JSOC, informing Brown that it was "highly possible that Corporal Tillman was killed by friendly fire".

[23][22] Ultimately, former commanding general of USASOC Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger and other Army officers were held responsible for the mishandling of information surrounding Tillman's death.

[26][27][28] As a result of Brown's contributions to the 2006 QDR were considered a success and a "major stride forward" in preparing U.S. special forces for future contingencies by increasing the SOF budget and manpower.

Over the course of his military career, Brown amassed a total of 4,400 hours of flight time in fixed and rotary-winged aircraft.

[33][19] At the Army War College in 1992, a then-Lieutenant Colonel Brown co-wrote a military studies program with future United States Northern Command commander, Victor E. Renuart, Jr., in a paper titled Combat Search and Rescue: A Search for Tomorrow.

[33][19][35] In November 2007, shortly after Brown retired from the Army, he joined the board of directors for Aurora Flight Sciences,[19] which specializes in the scientific and military applications of robotic aircraft and aerospace vehicles.