An American flag flies at half-staff in remembrance of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick above the Capitol Building in Washington, Friday, Jan. 8, 2021.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)SOUTH RIVER, N.J. โ From his early days growing up in a New Jersey hamlet, Brian Sicknick wanted to be a police officer.
He enlisted in the National Guard six months after graduating high school in 1997, deploying to Saudi Arabia and then Kyrgyzstan.
โHis brother told me, โBrian did his job,โโ said John Krenzel, the mayor of Sicknickโs hometown of South River, New Jersey.
He enlisted in the New Jersey Air National Guard that December, still a teenager, first deploying to Saudi Arabia in 1999.