Those who served with Brian Norman agree that he was an exceptional soldier - capable, meticulous and brave. He had two combat tours, one in Afghanistan, the other in Iraq, and was awarded two Bronze Stars.
He was also known as a singular teacher, one who demanded a great deal from students but also inspired and encouraged them. He helped with college applications, went to school football games, and even took students drag racing.
But this fall, his life unraveled.
On Nov. 12, he was arrested for allegedly slapping the buttocks of a 16-year-old girl, a junior in one of his classes at North Harford High School in Pylesville. Norman, a history and social studies teacher, was suspended with pay.
On Dec. 9, a Harford County grand jury indicted him on two felony charges, sexual abuse of a minor, for the alleged slap, and soliciting the production of child pornography, for allegedly asking the girl to e-mail him revealing photos of herself.
Ten days later, Norman, 34, fatally shot himself at his apartment just outside of Bel Air. He made sure no one could get to him until after he died, stacking chairs, a table and a huge chest of drawers against his front door and his bedroom door.
Friends and family say Norman was devastated by the charges - especially by the prospect of not being able to teach anymore - and claimed adamantly that he was innocent.
They also say he was suffering from a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Since returning from Iraq in May, Norman had been depressed, they said.
"He was very different. He wasn't his normal, hyper, crazy, runaround self," said his friend Jeremy Bender. "He seemed very down from what he normally was."
Norman first came to Harford County in 2001 from the Pittsburgh area, where he had grown up. He taught first at Magnolia Middle School and then at C. Milton Wright High School.
Norman threw himself into his job. In 2006, he and 100 or so Wright students designed and built a trebuchet, a 3-story-tall wooden launching tool similar to a catapult. Norman spent $300 of his money, and many hours of his time, on the project. That March, on the day before his deployment to Afghanistan, he and the students put on a show for the rest of the school, hurling watermelons, bowling balls, basketballs and 12 packs of soda 600 yards through the air.
