In 1939, he began working for the "New York Daily News", but his time there was interrupted in 1942 by World War II, in which he served in the United States Army with the 460th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion (460th PFAB). Brown was one of the first men to parachute into Southern France, in August 1944, receiving a battlefield commission as second lieutenant and being awarded the Purple Heart and Croix de Guerre with Palm.