GamecockSeven
12-31-2007, 09:30 AM
Lowcountry folks probably remember Walterboro running back Charlie Brown, the name sticks with you if nothing else at least. Pretty nice little article here catching up with him...
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/12/25/sports/local/12884871.txt
Brian Linder
The Times and Democrat
The voice on the other end of the line was distant, grown up - different.
The name was familiar. Charlie Brown was a tiny, talented tailback that moved up the road from Summerville with his parents to Hampton Street, one of the main veins that runs through the town of Walterboro.
John McKissick didn't know what he was losing when Charlie Brown moved out of the Green Wave's district and coach Leroy Riley didn't know what he was gaining in Colleton County. Back then, after a string of tailbacks that included Antione Nesmith, who went on to play fullback and then safety at the University of South Carolina, and Yusef Kelly, who went on to play tailback for Clemson and gain infamy for his role in the "Brawl Game," Riley wasn't exactly looking for many 5-5, 150 pound tailbacks.
But, there haven't been many 5-5, 150 pound tailbacks that could run like Charlie Brown could and fans in Colleton County quickly learned to love watching him scuttle across the football field on Friday nights. On the playing field, he best resembled a water bug skating across the black water of the Edisto River.
One second he would be on the hash mark, the next he would be on the sideline breaking toward the end zone.
He ran a North-South 4.4-second 40 and some guessed a 4.3 East-West 40. But, perhaps out of all his qualities, it was his durability that amazed the most.
Tiny Charlie took a licking from many a "Big 16" linebacker only to pop back up and jog back to the huddle.
Off the field, he was known as a fun-loving kid. He wasn't bad, but he probably wasn't the best student academically. Charlie Brown was a clown, and the voice of that clown was the one etched into my mind, not the one that was on the phone now.
The change in the voice was brought about by the change in the man. And, that's what Charlie Brown - 23 years old - is, a man. When high school ended, his lack of size saw to it that he didn't get much of a look from anyone at the college level after his final high school game - the 2002 SCADA North-South All-Star game. And, for most folks in Colleton County that's where the story of Charlie Brown ends.
Let it begin again - for the folks in Walterboro - and for all of us preparing to celebrate the Christmas Holidays. To his credit, young Charlie Brown wanted to make something of himself. He believed the United States Army was his avenue to achieving that goal.
Thus began a dizzying trip around the world. A few months after he enlisted, the kid who knew little more than the Lowcountry of South Carolina was driving transport trucks in the desert of Iraq.
He was ambushed by insurgents there, sent back to America, moved out to California, played a little semi-pro football there, got married to his high school sweetheart - Dee Dobson - in Las Vegas, moved to Savannah, had a son, had a daughter; and he was convinced he would never have to go back to Iraq again. Then the orders came down.
Charlie Brown is back in the desert. He has his own room with Internet, and that is a little better than last time around. He's based in Mosul, and he's still driving trucks - only this time the job is not quite as dangerous because he is doing recovery work. That's where the pluses end.
"This base is different," Brown said. "The last time I was here I was in Tikrit. Here, there is a lot going on."
A lot means gunshots, and a pretty reliable alarm clock of early morning mortar rounds.
"(In Tikrit) you never heard anything," Brown said, "unless you went out on the road."
Recovery work isn't the same as basic transport because most of the time when Brown gets to wherever he is going the killing is done.
"This time, I see more of what happens - the after effect," he said. "I have recovered trucks that were burned up with dead people still in them. I have seen a lot more doing recovery work."
Brown paused for a moment and sighed as though confronting what he's had to do and what he will undoubtedly have to do again.
"It's my job," he continued. "It's kind of nerve-wracking at first, but with everything you get used to it. It's crazy to see somebody in front of you dead and their truck still burning. A lot of times I am out there for six hours trying to put a burned up truck on the trailer.
"My only motivation is coming home."
Charlie Brown said he has grown up a lot. No longer is he motivated to be something for himself, but for his family as well. He will come home on leave just in time to catch his daughter, Shabriya's, first birthday on Jan. 22. Seven days later his son, Savion, will turn two. He wanted to make sure he was there for that.
But, that leaves Charlie Brown in Iraq for Christmas, like so many other soldiers, a world away from his family. What does he want for Christmas? It sounds simple, but the pain in his voice suggests it's just not likely.
"I am hoping these Iraqis don't go crazy and try to do some stupid stuff," he said. "But, I am worried they are going to go crazy on Christmas.
"The perfect Christmas for me would just to be able to stay in my room and talk to my family," he continued.
"That is about as good as it is going to get for me being out here. I'm not going to be home for Christmas. I'm missing my daughter's first Christmas.
I got my son a Power Wheel, and I am not going to be able to see him open it."
"I just hope I at least get to hear them open their presents."
Here's to hoping that happens -- that little Shabriya and Savion open up their gifts and that their father can hear their joy on the other end of the line.
Here's to hoping they will grow up to realize how their father has gone from Friday Night Hero to Great American Hero.
Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.
Here's to hoping that much comes true.
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/12/25/sports/local/12884871.txt
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/12/25/sports/local/12884871.txt
Brian Linder
The Times and Democrat
The voice on the other end of the line was distant, grown up - different.
The name was familiar. Charlie Brown was a tiny, talented tailback that moved up the road from Summerville with his parents to Hampton Street, one of the main veins that runs through the town of Walterboro.
John McKissick didn't know what he was losing when Charlie Brown moved out of the Green Wave's district and coach Leroy Riley didn't know what he was gaining in Colleton County. Back then, after a string of tailbacks that included Antione Nesmith, who went on to play fullback and then safety at the University of South Carolina, and Yusef Kelly, who went on to play tailback for Clemson and gain infamy for his role in the "Brawl Game," Riley wasn't exactly looking for many 5-5, 150 pound tailbacks.
But, there haven't been many 5-5, 150 pound tailbacks that could run like Charlie Brown could and fans in Colleton County quickly learned to love watching him scuttle across the football field on Friday nights. On the playing field, he best resembled a water bug skating across the black water of the Edisto River.
One second he would be on the hash mark, the next he would be on the sideline breaking toward the end zone.
He ran a North-South 4.4-second 40 and some guessed a 4.3 East-West 40. But, perhaps out of all his qualities, it was his durability that amazed the most.
Tiny Charlie took a licking from many a "Big 16" linebacker only to pop back up and jog back to the huddle.
Off the field, he was known as a fun-loving kid. He wasn't bad, but he probably wasn't the best student academically. Charlie Brown was a clown, and the voice of that clown was the one etched into my mind, not the one that was on the phone now.
The change in the voice was brought about by the change in the man. And, that's what Charlie Brown - 23 years old - is, a man. When high school ended, his lack of size saw to it that he didn't get much of a look from anyone at the college level after his final high school game - the 2002 SCADA North-South All-Star game. And, for most folks in Colleton County that's where the story of Charlie Brown ends.
Let it begin again - for the folks in Walterboro - and for all of us preparing to celebrate the Christmas Holidays. To his credit, young Charlie Brown wanted to make something of himself. He believed the United States Army was his avenue to achieving that goal.
Thus began a dizzying trip around the world. A few months after he enlisted, the kid who knew little more than the Lowcountry of South Carolina was driving transport trucks in the desert of Iraq.
He was ambushed by insurgents there, sent back to America, moved out to California, played a little semi-pro football there, got married to his high school sweetheart - Dee Dobson - in Las Vegas, moved to Savannah, had a son, had a daughter; and he was convinced he would never have to go back to Iraq again. Then the orders came down.
Charlie Brown is back in the desert. He has his own room with Internet, and that is a little better than last time around. He's based in Mosul, and he's still driving trucks - only this time the job is not quite as dangerous because he is doing recovery work. That's where the pluses end.
"This base is different," Brown said. "The last time I was here I was in Tikrit. Here, there is a lot going on."
A lot means gunshots, and a pretty reliable alarm clock of early morning mortar rounds.
"(In Tikrit) you never heard anything," Brown said, "unless you went out on the road."
Recovery work isn't the same as basic transport because most of the time when Brown gets to wherever he is going the killing is done.
"This time, I see more of what happens - the after effect," he said. "I have recovered trucks that were burned up with dead people still in them. I have seen a lot more doing recovery work."
Brown paused for a moment and sighed as though confronting what he's had to do and what he will undoubtedly have to do again.
"It's my job," he continued. "It's kind of nerve-wracking at first, but with everything you get used to it. It's crazy to see somebody in front of you dead and their truck still burning. A lot of times I am out there for six hours trying to put a burned up truck on the trailer.
"My only motivation is coming home."
Charlie Brown said he has grown up a lot. No longer is he motivated to be something for himself, but for his family as well. He will come home on leave just in time to catch his daughter, Shabriya's, first birthday on Jan. 22. Seven days later his son, Savion, will turn two. He wanted to make sure he was there for that.
But, that leaves Charlie Brown in Iraq for Christmas, like so many other soldiers, a world away from his family. What does he want for Christmas? It sounds simple, but the pain in his voice suggests it's just not likely.
"I am hoping these Iraqis don't go crazy and try to do some stupid stuff," he said. "But, I am worried they are going to go crazy on Christmas.
"The perfect Christmas for me would just to be able to stay in my room and talk to my family," he continued.
"That is about as good as it is going to get for me being out here. I'm not going to be home for Christmas. I'm missing my daughter's first Christmas.
I got my son a Power Wheel, and I am not going to be able to see him open it."
"I just hope I at least get to hear them open their presents."
Here's to hoping that happens -- that little Shabriya and Savion open up their gifts and that their father can hear their joy on the other end of the line.
Here's to hoping they will grow up to realize how their father has gone from Friday Night Hero to Great American Hero.
Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.
Here's to hoping that much comes true.
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/12/25/sports/local/12884871.txt