WTOC, Savannah, Georgia, news, weather and sports | Portal mourns soldier's death
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STATESBORO, GA (WTOC) - Almost everyone in Portal liked, or at least knew, Brock Chavers. Before he was a National Guardsmen, he was a student and high school ball player. Cora Wilkerson served with him, but also knew him since childhood.
"He was somebody you could depend on," she said. "Anytime you needed him, he'd be there."
His older cousin, Tendai Haggins, taught and coached him at Portal High School.
"Hard worker, come early, stayed late, gave you everything," he recalled. "Until I see a casket I guess coming home to us. Right now I don't believe it. The community is in shock."
Other former teachers say he checked on them and supported them long after his graduation.
"He had all the characteristics of a good soldier, hard worker, by the book, went and did what you're supposed to," said his JROTC instructor Bill Rogers.
Brock Chavers joined the National Guard in 2002 after high school graduation. His unit deployed in April for training, then to Afghanistan. Four years ago, they were called to duty for a year in Iraq.
"It is a sacrifice when you put on the uniform," explained Captain Mariel Potts, rear detachment administrative officer. "You realize your life is in the hands of something higher."
Loved ones say he was proud of his National Guard service and considered it an extended family, and for good reason. Brock was one of three brothers in this unit and his wife served here as well. This time, she's been serving in rear detachment working in the armory office full time, every day.
Chavers' death brings a new focus and somber connection between a small town and the rest of the world.
"You think about the soldiers in Afghanistan but it doesn't hit close to home," explained Chavers' high school basketball coach, Jeff Brannen. "But it makes you think about all of them differently; this hurt me."
A hurt perhaps felt much longer in a close knit town where grown men, even fathers and soldiers, somehow remain young sons and students in so many people's memories.
Funeral arrangements have not been finalized at this time.
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