Chuck Burrows:  

Not all roads lead to Arizona, but mine did. Came to Arizona in 2004 at the request of the Army, the same as so many in the military who get issued their next residence. Not that I'm complaining; for all the places before that the Army decided I needed to go to, Uncle Sam got it right on the last one. For those that didn't know, despite the long hair and an open disavowal to military service, I got into National Guard and then the Active Army by way of ROTC, and did 20+ years before retiring in 2006. I had a good time, met some truly great people of all ages, education and background that I never would have met had I not served. I spent about half of my time in the infantry, and the other half working in information systems. Like nearly everyone else in the mililtary these days, I had a couple of long vacations in sandy places where things occasionally explode. I have my share of the broken body parts as do most career servicemen and women, but I am thankful to have both eyes, legs, and hands at the end of that particular journey. Certainly luckier than Brian Birdwell, a fellow 1980 graduate and with whom I was in ROTC, who was severly burned in the Pentagon when the plane went in on 9/11; his recovery is nothing short of astounding. Lived in Korea, Kansas, Italy, Georgia, Arkansas, Afghanistan, Iraq, and of course Texas. Went to Germany, Japan, Krygystan, Uzbekistan, France, Berlin, Spain (yes, I did get to Spain, and I'll admit that I kinda liked the music), as well as Hawaii and many of the states in the US. I have three children, no longer kids. My daughter is married and lives in Central Texas attending college. One son is on active duty in the Navy, and the other is in Advanced Individual Training at Fort Huachuaca in the Intelligence Analyst field. I remarried in 2006 to Theresa Keckler, who I met here in Arizona and who was in Baghdad the same time I was in 2004. I continued to play music in various bands throughout college and military. All in all, I believe the final count was 17 different ones, some very short-lived but that I count as long as it performed publicly at least once. In highschool, Jay Burton, Bo Matthews, Gene Hughes and James Barclay started a band, and we played a few gigs to include the Kelly Bonfire and the SE TX State Fair. The band thinned down to just Bo, Jay and I for awhile, and went through some personnel and name changes from Target to Whitewater to Circus. After circus broke up, it eventually reformed without me as Hero, which was an excellent band. Played in two bands in Italy, with guitarists who spoke no English. Played in a country band in Kansas called Doc Holliday, a great country top-forty dance band that made it to the North Kansas finals of the Jimmy Dean/True ...Expand for more