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Charles Brobst grew up in a small manufacturing, farming town along the banks of the Schuylkill River and at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania. At the age of 14 he fought forest fires with the local Fire Crew a percussor to modern day Hot Shot Crews, He hunted and fished with his father and brother and when he graduated high school at the age of 17 he enlisted in the Army. He was trained as an aircraft engine overhaul mechanic and he volunteered for airborne training. He was assigned to the 82nd. Airborne Division in April 1968.Februrary 1969 found him assigned to the 173rd. Airborne Brigade in Vietnam.
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April 1970, he returned to the states and was honorably discharges. He promised his girlfriends father if he blessed their marriage he would see to it that she finished her last year in college. Two weeks before their August wedding her father died in a trucking accident.
September 1971 Charles reenlisted and was sent with his wife to Ft. Bragg and the 82nd. Airborne Division. After 3 years there he once again reenlisted and spent five years at Ft. Richardson, Alaska. While here Charles received a Commercial Pilots license and an Aircraft Mechanics license.
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1980 Charles had to make one of the hardest decisions of his life. He could go to the Army Special Forces and be gone for long periods from his wife and two young children or get out of the Army after 11 ½ years. To this day I wonder if by choosing my family if I made the correct choice.
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July 1980 we moved back to Anchorage, Alaska where Charles worked for commercial airlines as a mechanic and as his children grew up they hunted and fished in Alaska.
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1990 Charles went to Auctioneer School and started an auction company that he operated part-time until 2001 when he quit being a mechanic and became a full-time auctioneer.
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December 2023 saw the end of his auction company due to the early onset of his wife’s Alzheimer’s.
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Charles is an avid gardener, canning the surplus from his gardens, he still loves fishing and smoking the fish, and going to the rifle range.
Nomads: Escaping Chaos
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