LAKE OUACHITA, Ark. (KTHV) - Adam Brown was a member of the U.S. Navy's elite Seal Team Six. He was a Hot Springs native and a family man who was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan eight years ago.
His story was told in the book 'Fearless.' It's a story that has inspired others to give back, and allow Adam to help people years after his death.
"I always have the sense that I'm not alone," scuba diver Will Stevens said.
Six years ago, he had a dream. It came to him not long after he had read the book about Adam's life.
In the dream, he was scuba diving, when he discovered an underwater memorial for Brown.
"When I asked myself in the dream who built this," he said, "I heard a voice that said you will."
And he did. "I did not want to do it," he said. "I argued with myself for several days."
With help of a handful of other divers, nine months and thousands of dollars later, the team lowered the Adam Brown memorial into Lake Ouachita. The work on the memorial, they thought, was finished. The work on those left behind just started.
"I didn't used to like people," Stevens said.
He felt it first.
"While I worked on the memorial, I say God worked on me. It made me a better man."
After a special ops helicopter filled with Adam's former teammates was shot down in Afghanistan, Will and his team expanded the memorial.
"Of the 17 men that were with Adam the night he was killed, 13 of them were on that helicopter," Adam's father, Larry said. "That was a day of just how do we cope now?"
Each of those men, and their canine, now have their own stone, placed alongside Adam's. It's a memorial that continues to grow.
"We literally now have close to 100 items at the memorial," Stevens said. "People send us things from all over the world to honor Adam's legacy or the guys from Extortion 17 (the helicopter that was shot down)."
And it got a little bigger earlier this month. Will and his team led a group of wounded veterans and first responders down to the memorial.
"I served 25 years in the Army," said veteran Daryl Versey, who now lives in Little Rock.
The former combat medic took his dog tags down to the memorial.
"I didn't expect it to touch me like it did," he said. "I kinda faked it off in the beginning. I got a little emotional and came back up. I got my composure and did it again. It really reaches in and touches you. Just the spirit, you could feel it. It's weird, but that's what happened."
This trip was just one of the ways Adam's memory and the work of the Fearless Rock Dive Team is helping, healing and bringing smiles to those who deserve it most.
"That it was worth it," Stevens said, choking up about what the memorial has meant. "That's how it makes me feel. Yeah. That it was worth it."
And get this, Will's team isn't finished. They got an email from a woman asking for a memorial for her child, a young Arkansas killed in the military.
"I looked at my wife," Stevens said, "and I was like how do you tell someone that their child isn't worthy of an underwater memorial?"
The answer came, once again, underwater. Will was working on the memorial when the Arkansas flag fell on his head.
"I picked it up, swam over and placed it back where it was at," he said. Then it fell down again. And then as I placed it one last time I looked and realized the entire side of the memorial was open."
Their plan, to take that open space and honor every Arkansan killed in the military since Sept. 11, 2001.
"Adam wouldn't want this to be all about him," Stevens said. "He'd want it to be about his teammates. He'd want it to be about other Arkansans who paid the ultimate sacrifice just as he did. And he'd want it to be about God."
For more information on Fearless Rock, you can check out the group's Facebook page.