Dead GI’s Mother: Arrest ‘Completes Mission’

BUENA PARK — The mother of the Buena Park soldier who was among the first Americans killed in Panama said Thursday that she feels her son did not die in vain now that former Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega has surrendered to U.S. authorities.

Julie Otto, 43, said Noriega’s surrender and subsequent arrest by agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration “completes the mission” for her late son, Army Pfc. Roy Dennis Brown Jr., 19.

“It puts the icing on the cake,” Otto said in a telephone interview.

Army officials said Brown died Dec. 20 during an early-morning assault at Rio Hato, the site of a Panamanian defense force camp. Brown was one of 3,000 troops who parachuted into the camp, a target that was said to be essential to the success of the invasion. Brown was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart, which Otto accepted at her son’s military funeral in Orange last week.

Otto said she learned of Noriega’s surrender while watching the evening news Wednesday. She summoned her boyfriend, Bob Sharkey, to hear the details of the arrest.

“We were very relieved that he turned himself in,” Otto said. “The surrender completes the mission for (the troops in Panama). It’ll never bring Roy back, but it wraps things up.”

Otto said her family is slowly recovering from the shock of Brown’s death and she is now concentrating on getting her life back in order.

“We’re doing pretty good,” she said. “The family’s all back home again. I’ve been running around doing things I’ve been putting off, so I’m not just sitting around grieving.”

While the family seeks to put the ordeal behind them, Otto is already anticipating an event that is sure to stir up memories of her son’s death--Noriega’s impending trial on drug-trafficking charges. But Otto, who said she was deluged by calls from reporters seeking comment about Noriega’s surrender, said she already has a contingency plan.

“We’ve decided that once Noriega goes to trial, we’re going to go out of town and not tell anyone where we are,” she said.