Charles G.
Brown
To
All,
I
attended Charlie Brown’s funeral service at Barrancas National Cemetery
in
Pensacola this morning, here is what I learned. Approximately 6
months or
so ago Charlie quit smoking. A month or so later he was doing
some
repair work to his roof and had difficulty breathing and catching his
breath.
When he went to the doctor they discovered he had advanced lung cancer
that had
spread to his spine and was continuing to spread with no option of
surgery. As many of you are aware this must have been a very
aggressive
form of cancer for diagnosis so late and death so quickly.
At
the funeral service I met 5 other aviators who flew with Charlie at PHI
along
with a few of his neighbors. I met his wife Dianne and son
Christopher. Christopher is on active duty with the US Army. Charlie
and
Dianne would have celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary
in
December. The aviators and neighbors described Charlie as easy
going and
humorous till the end. He also appears to have been a
faithful and
openly outspoken Christian. He asked Chaplain Swindle to spend
time
talking about the importance of Jesus Christ in Charlie’s life.
I
have attached a copy of the Funeral Service handout. I am glad
“we were
there” for Charlie’s family. Clearly, when I explained who
I was and
how I knew Charlie their eyes brightened for just a moment in pride and
they
showed true appreciation of the “unit” and were obviously thrilled to
hear
something about Charlie they had never known. His son stood and
shook my
hand, his wife held my hand. I let them know how sorry we all
were for
their loss. I told them the Charlie they described was the one we
knew
too.
Where
one of us is so are we all.
Pat Ross
To Folded Wings