In Memory of Kenneth M. McBrayer

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Oh, how I remember this wonderful person. I went to school with him and he was always so nice with a pleasant personality. I know his contributions to our world will truely be missed, may he rest in peace. One day we will see our good friend again. My sympathy to his family.

*** Posted by Becky Hancock Foster on 2011-09-10 ***

although I never knew mr.mcbrayer I knew of him and his father. I grew up in the college park area and attendeing lakeshore high school I was often asked if we were related and to this day dont know if we were. I do know we share the same last name and reguardless we are fellow americans and on this tenth anniversery off 911 as I reflect on the changes in our would I feel compelled to say I wish I had known him. he resonates all that is good in this world and what our country stands for and was founded on. this sunday as I lead our church in prayer I pray god rest his soul and the many others lost that day an may blesses his family in every way.. we are to forgive but must but must never forget! god bless america, greg mcbrayer

*** Posted by greg mcbrayer on 2011-09-07 ***

Wow- I did not know that this site existed until today. I was married to Ken for 15 years (wife number 1) before we got a divorce in 1989. Even though we were divorced there will always be a part of Ken in my heart. I felt like I lost him two times- the divorce once and his death the second time. It is very comforting to read comments from other family and friends. Ken (as most men) was not one to share alot of emotions - but I think he would have liked to have been not so "perfect" or in his mind thinking he had to be "so perfect" all of the time. That is a heavy weight to carry on your shoulders. He was probably one of the most intelligent people that I have ever met and one of the hardest workers but I wonder if perhaps some of that was not to his detriment- I think sometimes he would like to just throw caution to the wind and just do something fun or silly not because it was the right thing to do or because it was the rational thing to do. That was a side I hardly ever got to see (usually when we were down in Florida with our friends Bobby and Suzanne) but when I did it was fabulous- he was like a kid and so relaxed. Wish we could have had more times like that. Well as everyone else has said I miss him still and when 9/11 comes around every year it is still hard to believe that we will never see him again- at least in this world-

*** Posted by CIndy McBrayer on 2011-08-01 ***

I am a distant cousin of Ken, I never knew him, but I hope that his family has a great sense of relief.
 
I pray for the family, God bless you all.

*** Posted by Oscar Earl McBrayer, Jr. on 2011-05-03 ***

I didn't know Ken, but I'm a distant cousin of Marsha. Her grandmother, Melba and I corresponded. We also swapped family pictures. So I had seen him in their family pictures taken in Illinois. He was a handsome man. Melba wrote a couple years earlier that Marsha and Ken had bought her a car. So I knew that he was a very kind and generous person. Melba wrote to me about 4 or 5 months after 9/11 and told me that he was gone and she sent me a newspaper article about him and his family. I've either lost it or misplaced it and would appreciate it if someone would send it to me
I think of him every 9/11.

Love and Thanks,

Carolyn
andorl [at ] aol.com 
1629 Calle Las Casas
Oceanside, CA 92056

*** Posted by Carolyn Lanyi on 2010-09-12 ***

I remember sitting in a chair at home, watching the 5 P.M. news, when the anchorman said that there was another Georgia connection to the attack of 9/11. This was one week after the attack. When he first told about it, I didn't pick up on who it was ... telling about being born in Marietta (GA) and growing up in East Point (GA). I'm not sure if he mentioned Briarwood High School.... Age and time have made the details a little fuzzy, which is ironic, since I used to be able to remember all kinds of stuff in detail. Then he said his name ... and in a few moments, I realized who he was talking about, and my mouth literally dropped. After the story ended, I got on the phone, calling around to tell somebody. I was in such shock. I was NEVER expecting any personal connection whatsoever.

I sat next to Ken at Briarwood High School's 1970 class graduation. He was to give a speech. He was so nervous. He was swallowing hard. The paper was trembling. I kept whispering to him it was going to be okay. That was all I could think to say. Ken was BMOC, and I was nobody. I doubt he even knew who I was. He made the speech, came back to his seat, and let out a big sigh. I think I said, "You did it!" In five years of high school, that was my only contact with him.

I was saddened for a long time. I remember in the spring before it happened, I was scanning the business section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and saw his name and wondered if that could be the same Ken McBrayer I went to school with. I saw the company name and apparently stored it.... It was mentioned in the news report, so that confirmed this was the same Ken McBrayer.

In the aftermath, I learned a lot about Ken McBrayer. How sad that I couldn't say more as we sat next to each other at graduation. Now that's been 40 years ago. Time marches on, they say ... and it did.

I want his family to know that I remember him every year. God bless them!

*** Posted by Valora Strickland on 2010-09-11 ***

We're still remembering you nine years later, Ken, knowing that you died with great courage and sacrifice. We celebrate your life in our hearts always.

*** Posted by Debbie Jones (aka Nottingham) on 2010-09-11 ***

Rest in peace, my fellow football teammate from Briarwood High. I remember the times as if yesterday.

God bless you,
Sidney

*** Posted by Sidney Payne on 2010-06-13 ***

It is seven years since I last talked with Ken. It has been difficult for me to express feelings on these memorials. I imagine my luck of being constantly late served me well that fateful September morning. I had met with Ken, and Joel Katz, in their office only days before.

I think of Ken often, dedicated first to his family and everything else always secondary. Ken was the Distinguished Naval Academy Graduate who never once traded on his past or present glories. Ken had given me a section of a Commencement Address he was once a part of. It encompassed honor, duty, perseverance, and, above all, Truth. This is how Ken conducted himself in all facets of a life taken too soon. I miss him always.

With kind regards I am,
Brian G. Rotchford

*** Posted by Brian Rotchford on 2008-09-04 ***

I never knew my cousin, Kenneth McBrayer, but what a stellar person I read that he became. I do grieve for his family.

*** Posted by William McBrayer Wood (Charlotte) on 2007-10-08 ***

Ken's High School Graduation Speech. I was going through my mother's personal items, and she saved this from my brother's graduation from Briarwood. I thought I would share it.

-Alice Wilson Brock


From the beginning of conscious living in our society, education has created a maturing awareness of rivers that segregate our people. Classroom learning was based upon maps that state exact location, origin, and depth of each river. But true learning came initially from the personal experience of actually standing on a river’s bank, wanting to cross, and searching the site for a bridge only to find none. We’ve lived to see these same diverse rivers change their courses and to watch the waters become increasingly stirred and troubled.

What are the troubled waters of today? We are acquainted with all of them: newspapers headline them for us daily. Perhaps the oldest river of our time is the race river. Blacks and whites are still standing on opposite sides, each crying their demands for equality or supremacy without listening to the other. To be noticed and heard will take more action, so each side begins to splash and disrupt the water with violence. The only reaction is more violence.

Therefore, organizations are formed that pledge to force the opposite to listen – groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panthers. You know who they are; you may even be a member. But today they do little more than muddy the waters. As we remember seeing the bodies of Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King being pulled out of the river, we know that a handful of men did see the necessity to cross the river. But, they found the river so wide, the current so strong, the water so rough, that they drowned.

The river that threatens us each day with the possibility of a third World War, the final war, is the river between the free state and the communistic state. At the turn of the decade, a conflict within a small Southeast Asian country stole the world’s spotlight. This conflict, symbolic of the entire struggle between free people and ruled people, progressed to require the involvement of American troops in a foreign nation. With involvement came escalation and deaths. The Vietnam War is definitely a major cause of dissent and turmoil within our country. There is uncertainty over the importance of this war and the righteousness of staking our soldiers’ lives on what we believe to be the rights of another people. We all want peace, but the means by which we achieve it are in question. It began as a river between our way of life and another’s. But it has risen and branched until it now divides our own nation. We can only see that nothing has been done toward a final, peaceful settlement. Attempts such as the Paris Peace Talks have done the minimum to bridge that gap.

The most recent river to cut a path through this country’s people is the divider of youth and the establishment. Its rebellious course is marked with demonstrations, marijuana, peace symbols, long hair, and pop-festivals. We're questioning and re-evaluating: we are asking, "Why?" And, we are not accepting tradition as justification. True, it is the youngest river, but it is also the oldest because its source is the junction of all other rivers. Perhaps it is not a river at all, but an ocean. But even oceans can be crossed.

We are learning that classroom solutions are not successful. Percentages and busing will not integrate America. There are doubts that the continuation of this war will bring peace. Military and police action will not quiet dissenters and destruction of campus buildings will not bring about responsible change. There must be a personal willingness to enter the water.

The troubled waters are there and there are bridges to construct. A man can be content to let the water remain troubled. He can decide that the river is too wide and stand on one side for his principles, or he can reach across the water to the other side and become a bridge, a path for communication and understanding. It’s a personal confrontation and a personal decision. We each will have to decide. Each of you will have to choose.

“Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.”

Kenneth Miles McBrayer
May 22, 1970

*** Posted by Alice Brock on 2007-09-14 ***

Ken was a year ahead of me at Briarwood High School. You seldom saw him without a smile on his face. Even though he was a gifted athlete, he never had a "jock" mentality. He saw each person as a potential friend. My heart broke when I learned that he was one of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy. I've often prayed for his family.... I cannot imagine the terrible sense of loss. I stumbled onto this page while browsing on the Internet, but I was grateful to find it. My memories of Ken will always be positive.

*** Posted by Bonnie Brannon Cook on 2007-07-29 ***

I graduated from Briarwood High School in 1970 with Ken. His father was the principal of our high school and looking back that must have been difficult for Ken and his brother Max. Ken was a class officer and the quarterback of the football team. My thoughts and prayers have been with his family, loved ones and friends since that infamous day.

*** Posted by Ken McBrayer on 2006-09-12 ***

Ken and I were colleagues in the mortgage business. We met in 1986, while he was working with Commerce McGhee in Memphis. Our friendship grew and in 1988 we came close to joining up professionally, but decided that would ruin the friendship. 

It's been 5 years, but I have never forgotten Ken and our friendship. I did not find out until a few days after that Ken was lost. This is the first time that I have visited this site as it is still painful to reflect. I guess I chose to deny it happened, hoping that one day Ken's smiling face would be on the other line pitching some bonds. It was a cruel twist of fate and the actions of sick and twisted minds. As it was on that day, I left Dulles that morning on a flight to Minneapolis, which departed just five minutes after and three gates away from the American Airlines flight that flew into the Pentagon with a number of other friends. There is a not a day that goes by that I don't think about why I was spared, yet so many of many friends were not. Ken's sacrifice will not be in vain. The mortgage banking business lost one of its best. My sincerest condolences to your family. We miss you!

*** Posted by Dave Hurt on 2006-09-11 ***

I just learned that Ken was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and can't believe it. I dated Ken while he was at USNA and I a student at the University of Maryland. He was still settling into the military culture when I knew him-so much of what he wrote and talked about reflected that ambivalence. Yet, I knew he would become a good officer because he cared about people. I believe that my relationship with him had an impact on my own military career. I pray for his family and hope that they find solace in memories shared by those who knew Ken.

*** Posted by Peggy Chamberlain Wilmoth on 2005-08-18 ***

Ken worked for me in the Navy. He was a division officer in USS Capodanno after he graduated from the Naval Academy. Because we were a new ship, we had an unusually large number of USNA graduates in division officer positions. They were all fine officers and several have had successful naval careers, but Ken was the cream of the crop, a true star who was a natural leader and sailor. He qualified more quickly than his peers in various watch stations and then he was superior in his performance. His sailors loved him and worked hard for him. He was so good that he was among a handful of young officers hand picked for the carrier readiness improvement program which was an attempt to fix our carriers by, among several initiatives, putting top young officers in division officer roles to improve leadership, readiness and morale. It wasn't the kind of job he wanted to do, but he went and did his duty in stellar fashion and without complaint because that was the kind of person he was. Ken kind of got caught in a catch 22 situation. His grades at the academy were so good that he qualified for medical school. He wanted to be a navy doctor. Unfortunately, the needs of the service came first and by the time he completed his sea duty requirements, his academic experience was too old to allow him to compete again without going back to undergraduate refresher courses. I always thought the navy's decision was short-sighted, who knows what a great doctor he might have been, especially with his sea duty experience. After Ken left the navy, I know he and Cindy settled near Memphis. I understand they subsequently divorced and I lost track of them both. Bob Frey, our skipper, told me Ken was in the WTC attacks and had perished. I didn't know, I was shocked and saddened by his death. Knowing the kind of Naval Officer Ken was, I know he died trying to help others. He died a hero.

*** Posted by Bill Shiffer on 2004-02-18 ***

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