{"id":41261,"date":"2025-07-05T17:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T17:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/41261\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T17:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T17:16:09","slug":"former-san-diego-u-s-attorney-inducted-in-ranger-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/41261\/","title":{"rendered":"Former San Diego U.S. attorney inducted in Ranger Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly five decades before Robert Brewer served as U.S. attorney in San Diego, he was an Army Ranger who, late one evening, found himself as the lone American embedded with South Vietnamese troops when they were attacked and surrounded by North Vietnamese enemies.<\/p>\n

At one point during the dark of night, North Vietnamese soldiers shouted that they would let their outnumbered adversaries escape unharmed in exchange for handing over Brewer, who was advising a company of South Vietnamese rangers. The South Vietnamese troops refused despite suffering heavy losses \u2014 17 killed and 14 wounded \u2014 during a 15-hour firefight. When the sun rose the next morning, the air support Brewer had called for finally arrived in the form of eight Army helicopters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never forget it \u2014 eight helicopters make a lot of noise,\u201d Brewer recalled in an interview this week. He also still remembers the exact words he briefly exchanged over the radio with one of the approaching pilots, and how close he came to meeting his end that morning in September 1970.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they had arrived an hour later, I wouldn\u2019t be talking to you today,\u201d he said. \u201cBut for them, we would have been overrun.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his actions, Brewer, 79, was awarded the Silver Star, the third-highest military decoration. He also earned two Bronze Stars, among other honors, for his time in combat<\/a>. Despite serving just four years in the Army, his 15 months in combat in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were so eventful that last week, he was inducted into the Army Ranger Hall of Fame during a ceremony at Fort Benning, Ga.<\/p>\n

\u201cRangers have a very historic lineage \u2026 and Bob is the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me,\u201d Patrick Gallagher, Brewer\u2019s friend of 55 years and a retired Army Green Beret, said over the phone.<\/p>\n

While the first official Ranger battalion was formed in 1942, the Rangers trace their lineage back to at least the 1750s. The Ranger Hall of Fame was established in 1992, and just 15 former Rangers are inducted into the prestigious group each year, with this year\u2019s class including a retired general, two retired colonels and others who spent decades in the Army. Brewer is credited in his official Hall of Fame biography<\/a> for both\u00a0\u201chis extraordinary service in the U.S. Army and his distinguished career in both federal and civilian legal fields,\u201d which included serving as U.S. attorney in San Diego<\/a> during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n

Gallagher, who attended the June 25 induction ceremony, crossed paths with Brewer for just a few months in early 1970 while both men were stationed in Germany. Gallagher had just left Vietnam, and Brewer was about to deploy there. But that brief overlap sparked a lifelong friendship, and Gallagher watched from afar over the years as Brewer gained prominence in the San Diego legal community.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was obviously successful in his military career and incredibly successful his entire legal career,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cHe was a spectacular, smart, bright, decisive attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brewer, a New York native who has lived the majority of his adult life in San Diego, remained in the Army reserves for five years after he left active service, including while earning his law degree in 1975 from the University of San Diego. He spent seven years as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, then nearly 40 years as a civil litigator and white-collar defense attorney in San Diego at several large firms before serving as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California from 2019 to 2021.<\/p>\n

Larry Chaney, a retired Army Ranger who was wounded in combat in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, works as a legal administrative specialist at the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in San Diego. Chaney didn\u2019t know Brewer or much about his background when he was confirmed by the Senate and took over the office, but Chaney\u00a0saw that his new boss wore a Silver Star lapel pin. Soon, Chaney had dug into Brewer\u2019s military history and was awestruck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Ranger myself and I don\u2019t impress easily, but I saw his military profile and said \u2018This is a walking hero in our midst,\u2019\u201d Chaney said. \u201cThis guy is a badass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chaney nominated Brewer for the Ranger Hall of Fame and also attended last week\u2019s ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just an incredible man and was an incredible leader here at the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office,\u201d Chaney said. \u201cI\u2019m so proud to have served under him \u2026 He\u2019s a great man, a great motivating leader. I\u2019m still in awe of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chaney promised Brewer during his stint as U.S. attorney that he\u2019d one day be in the Ranger Hall of Fame. Brewer didn\u2019t feel he was worthy of such an honor.<\/p>\n

It took three tries through the nomination process, but earlier this year Brewer was picked to join the select group, which now has just more than 500 members.<\/p>\n

\"Brewer'sBrewer’s Ranger Hall of Fame plaque. (Larry Chaney)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rangers have an incredible history,\u201d Brewer said, specifically mentioning four officers \u2014 Robert Rogers, Frank Merrill, William Darby and James Rudder \u2014 who are considered something like the founding fathers of the Rangers. \u201cTo be in the same organization with these four legends is just incredibly meaningful for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brewer, who is now of counsel at the firm Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek, might have never joined the Rangers if not for the death of his father while he was attending St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. Brewer was already in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, but to pay the last two years of his tuition, he sought and was awarded an ROTC scholarship that required a four-year Army commitment.<\/p>\n

Four days after he graduated in 1968, he reported for an infantry officer training course. That was soon followed by airborne training and then Ranger school, a notoriously grueling nine-week program that includes three weeks each at Fort Benning, in the mountains of Georgia, and in the swamps of Florida.<\/p>\n

Within a week of arriving in Vietnam in late April 1970, he was sent with South Vietnamese troops into Cambodia. The revelation that the war was spreading and American troops such as Brewer were in Cambodia sparked massive protests back home, including at Kent State University, where Ohio National Guard troops shot into a crowd of campus demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine.<\/p>\n

In December 1970, a few months after the firefight that earned him the Silver Star Medal, Brewer was assigned to Military Assistance Command, Vietnam \u2014 Studies and Observations Group. Better known as MOCSAG, it was a highly classified special operations task force made up of personnel from every U.S. military branch and the CIA, and was responsible for unconventional warfare in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.<\/p>\n

\u201cMACSOG was the best of the best, and I was so honored to be a part of it,\u201d Brewer said. \u201cWe planned and conducted reconnaissance into Laos and Cambodia. To the outside world, we didn\u2019t have any people in those two countries, and we were ordered never to talk about it for 30 years. We were officially never there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon returning stateside, Brewer was hospitalized at Naval Medical Center San Diego for a parasite he\u2019d acquired in the jungle. He fell in love with the city, eventually making it his home.<\/p>\n

He credits much of the success of his legal career in San Diego to his time as a Ranger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly five decades before Robert Brewer served as U.S. attorney in San Diego, he was an Army Ranger…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,356,1370,728,1802,50,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-41261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}