One of the 49 killed in the early Sunday shooting at an Orlando nightclub was a Reserve Army captain, the first military fatality in the attack, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. Capt. Antonio Davon Brown, 29, joined the Army Reserves out of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Florida A&M University in 2008, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said. Brown was killed along with 48 others in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, carried out by gunman Omar Mateen, an American citizen born in New York. Brown was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 383rd Regiment, 4th Cavalry Brigade, 85th Support Command based in St. Louis, Mo. His commander, Lt. Col. Kevin Dasher, said Brown was a “loyal and dutiful” soldier who “faced any and all challenges with a smile on his face, and an unwavering spirit that everyone in our unit cherished.” Davis said during a Tuesday briefing the Pentagon was not aware of any other military members or veterans injured or killed in the attack. The club’s bouncer, Imran Yousef, is a Marine Corps veteran who has been credited with saving dozens of lives. Yousef told CBS News he heard the first rounds from Mateen’s gun, and opened a side door to lead 60-70 people to safety. “There was only one choice,” Yousef told CBS. “Either we all stay there and we all die, or I could take the chance, and I jumped over to open that latch and we got everyone that we can out of there.”
Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd III met with his counterparts from Australia, Japan and the Philippines to discuss bolstering defense ties on May 2. The discussion included plans for joint F-35 exercises with Japan and Australia in the coming years.