Most of the people in this hall are here because they had a good lip,
fast hands, quick feet or chose to manage this unwieldy and troublesome
beast called the Sunrisers.
This inductee is here because of his determination and courage.
When Charlie Walch left the corps to join the Air Force, he did it
the way he did everything else: no fuss, no fanfare, just a quiet announcement
that he was off to serve his country. Quiet dignity, a truly rare
commodity in our drum corps, was Charlie’s trademark.
The next time we saw Charlie was a year or so later when he walked into
the Hempstead Post looking for a horn. He looked terrible! But he was ready
to march and had in his possession the ultimate prize for a Vietnam Era
serviceman: A medical discharge. Bad eyes, flat feet, defective hearing,
curvature of the spine, any of those wonderful afflictions that the military
services considered severe enough to make you unfit to serve but didn’t really
interfere with the business of living. What a wonderful twist of fate.
Charlie was not immediately forthcoming with any specifics and John wanted us
to work on Bar 13 so the war stories were put on hold. Charlie went to work
mastering the new G-F/rotary horn and coming to grips with all those 16th notes, quietly.
It was a week of two later before we got the story behind Charlie’s discharge.
One evening when Charlie was out on a pass with some service buddies, he decided to
go back to the post to get a little extra rest. The next time his buddies saw him
he was lying in the street with him skull smashed in. To this day no investigation
has been able to determine whether Charlie was hit by a motor vehicle, or robbed,
or someone just decided to try to beat him to death. Charlie doesn’t remember the
incident. The first thing he does remember is waking up from a coma in a military
hospital. Due to the severity of the injury to his head the doctors hadn’t expected
him to survive much less regain consciousness.
During his subsequent rehabilitation Charlie had to deal with relearning
to walk and talk and feed himself but he just pressed on, quietly. Following one
grueling session, Charlie and his wife Fran were advised by his doctor that he was
making good progress and that in a year or two he could expect to be able to stand
unassisted and possibly walk a few steps. Charlie looked at the doctor and
announced that “I’m marching with the Sunrisers next season!” The doctor looked
at Fran’s grin and Charlie’s determined scowl and increased Charlie’s medication.
We’ll never know exactly how tough that next year was because Charlie and Fran
are not the type of people to discuss such things much less tell “war stories”.
But anyone familiar with recovery from that kind of major skull trauma can draw
their own conclusions as to the challenges met.
Just being able to return to the corps after major rehab is heroic enough but
there is another factor. The danger. People with major trauma to the skull and
brain are subject to seizures. Doctors prescribe medication to control the seizures.
But even when controlled with medication, the conditions that cause the seizures are
still there. Charlie would never admit it, but, every time he put that horn to his
lips he was putting his life in danger. Don’t be mistaken, Charlie isn’t a fool and
he has no wish to die but his love for the Sunrisers is so great that he was willing
to set aside the risks and march with us. It was a goal he set while lying in a
hospital bed and a goal he achieved by marching the whole 1968 season and with the
exception of two bus rides and one flight from New Orleans it was all done with quiet
dignity. Nobody made a big fuss about Charlie’s inspirational return to the corps
because that isn’t our style so he didn’t think it was a big deal.
So on the evening
of December 7, 1968 when Charlie was presented the “Mr. Sunriser” award to the
unrestrained cheers of his brother Sunrisers he was the only surprised person in the room.
In typical Charlie Walch fashion, when he returned to the table after a 5 minute standing
ovation, his first question was “Why me, I thought “…( and he named four or five others
that he thought were more deserving)…would get it”. But that’s Charlie Walch and that’s
why he belongs in the Sunrisers Hall of Fame.
--- Bob Murphy
