The Army gave the final permission, and the Browns moved to Boston so that Brown could study at MIT. They arrived with two children; two years later another baby was born.
He finished his Ph.D. in record time—two and a quarter years. Most people took three to five years to finish a doctorate. Brown was in a hurry because he knew the Army was losing patience with him. A Pentagon personnel officer would often call and say, “Brown, when are you going to finish up there? We are having to send some officers back to Vietnam for the third time. Here you are having a nice time going to school. We want to send you to Vietnam. You need to get back into a proper career pattern.”
“I’ll do the best I can, sir,” he promised. “I’m working as hard as I can.” And he was. Ever since arriving at MIT, he had stopped watching television and reading the newspaper and worked at an intense pace.