Meet the deejay of the Lizard Lounge. That was Bryan P. Abercrombie — the Army sergeant — in his off-duty hours.

The 22-year-old spun CDs and tended bar at a club on his military base when he wasn’t working as a helicopter crew chief.

Bryan loved the action and challenge of the Army and hoped to be a pilot one day, say parents Peter and Diane Abercrombie of Clinton.

Their youngest child was a daredevil — “He had no fear,” his mother says.

Which explains why he used to rappel head first while with his Clearfield High Junior ROTC unit.

Or why he twice climbed to the top of Lagoon’s towering Rocket ride — with permission — when he worked at the Farmington amusement park.

Bryan died Dec. 11, 2002, when his Black Hawk helicopter crashed on its return to a Honduran air base after a routine night training mission. Four fellow soldiers perished with him.

The Clearfield High School graduate belonged to Joint Task Force Bravo, a military command that conducts humanitarian missions and anti-drug activities in Central and South America.

“It’s a different type of war,” says Peter, a fight removed from zones where “bullets are flying, bombs are dropping.”

Because of that, the couple say they have sometimes had to push for Bryan to be included in tributes or memorials to other soldiers in the current conflict — even though he was Utah’s first casualty.

“Anybody that died after 9-11 is considered part of the War on Terror,” Diane says, and she believes her son deserves recognition. After all, “He gave his life.”

No more cookies

Shortly before Bryan’s death, Diane e-mailed him to ask what kind of cookies he wanted when he came home for Christmas. “The peanut butter ones, with the Hershey’s kisses on top,” he wrote her back. It was his last message. On Dec. 20 — the day the family planned to welcome Bryan home for the holidays — they laid his body to rest in an Ohio cemetery. Now, four years later, the flag from Bryan’s casket sits in a triangular wooden case on the Abercrombie’s coffee table. A banner with a gold star hangs in their living room window, a symbol of a child who died in military service. Then there’s a more lighthearted memento: a pudgy Pillsbury Dough Boy ornament nestled among a collection of framed family photos. Bryan always liked the character, Diane says, and collected T-shirts and figurines with the likeness. “Every time you see the Pillsbury Dough Boy,” she says, “you think of him.”

Two sons, two stars

Bryan joined the Army at 19, after serving in Clearfield High School’s Junior ROTC. His parents weren’t surprised; other family members have logged military service, including Peter, who spent 22 years in the Air Force.

Bryan’s older brother Peter is now in the Air Force, stationed at Oklahoma’s Tinker Air Force Base. A veteran of Afghanistan, young Peter is the reason for the family’s second star in the window — a blue one, for a child currently in military service.

Bryan’s love for Junior ROTC prompted his parents to establish an annual $2,000 scholarship in his name.

Presenting the award can be “heartwrenching,” Peter says, adding, “Sometimes I break down.”

But, “What better way to preserve his memory?” Diane says.

Bryan’s stint in Honduras began on Sept. 11, 2001; he was flying to the post when terrorists attacked America.

More than a year later, his helicopter crashed while trying to avoid stormy weather, Peter says. The bodies of all five soldiers were found; Bryan was trapped in the copter and burned.

“So we didn’t even have the closure of seeing him at the end,” his mother says.

Hidden messages

Diane sheds tears as she talks about what her son might be doing now, were he still alive. Maybe he’d be married and even have children.

“His life was just really beginning; he was only 22,” she says.

Bryan’s parents say they still feel his presence. As Peter worked on the swamp cooler the first year after Bryan’s death, he was feeling blue because it was a job he and his son used to do together.

Then, oddly, a baby bird perched on the roof as Peter worked and stayed close, even letting Peter pet it.

The father also recalls a day he and Diane found 11 cents — a dime and a penny — twice in one day, on the floor of the same store.

The number is significant because Bryan joined the Army on that date, arrived in Honduras on that date and died on that date.

They’re all signals, Peter says: “He’s still around.”