Southold Town Assessor Sanders begins fourth military deployment
Charles Sanders, a U.S. Marine veteran and recently promoted Lieutenant Colonel of the New York Army National Guard, had a heartfelt sendoff by the Southold American Legion Post 803 Friday, May 30, before leaving the North Fork for his fourth military deployment.
For almost seven years, Mr. Sanders took helm of the Southold American Legion as its post commander until he stepped down from the role in 2023. While wishing Mr. Sanders well on his upcoming deployment, his legion family celebrated his accomplishment of achieving an advanced rank, as well as recognizing the long-lasting impact his leadership has made on Post 803.
“Everybody in this room, you’ve touched in me some manner, somehow I saw you in town, somehow we were doing the Walk4Valor — this is what the American Legion really stands for,” Lt. Col. Sanders said at his going away party. “I’m just absolutely thrilled that everybody in this room came to honor me, but I want to honor all the veterans that are here — the police, and anybody else that served our country. God bless all of you,” he said.
Photos by Jeremy Garretson
Lt. Col. Sanders served in the Marine Corps Reserve as an enlisted corporal from 1991 to 1998 and has been a member of the New York Army National Guard since 2008. Among his deployments are 2010 and 2012 in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2015. For the next 10 or so months, he said he will be stationed in Kuwait.
In addition to his decorated military service, Lt. Col. Sanders has also served as Southold Town Assessor since 2017 and works as a licensed associate real estate broker with William Raveis. He’s running for reelection in November, but he said his deployment will not impact his campaign. As of now, he is on a leave of absence from the town position until the end of the year and plans to continue the role if he wins the election.
When he first joined the military during the Gulf War in 1991, he was in the middle of boot camp when the war ended sooner than expected, in just 42 days. However, Lt. Col. Sanders was still committed to the Marine Corps Reserve for six more years, so he completed his duty without being deployed.
After a long break in service, Lt. Col. Sanders recalled that after 9/11 and the 2008 stock market crash, he decided he wanted to return to the Marine Corps as an officer. He remembered going right up to a recruiter — all ready and willing to go — when he was stopped because of his age.
“He laughed because I was too old, I was like 39 years old — Marine Corps officers are a lot younger,” he said. “This is right during what’s going on in Afghanistan, so the Marine Corps had a pretty strict age limit, but the Army National Guard didn’t.”
Even to get into the New York Army National Guard, he needed a signed waiver and had to complete the accelerated officer’s course before he turned 40. He remembered being “really under the gun” to get the course done, but got through the accelerated program just one month before his birthday.
After infantry school at 40 and air assault school at 41, he got connected with the the 69th Infantry Regiment in New York City — also known as the “Fighting Sixty-Ninth” — just as they were coming back from deployment.
“I was just a brand new bubble bar lieutenant … so here you have all these leaders with combat patches, and I’m like, ‘I can’t be a lieutenant with all these soldiers that have just come back from combat,'” Lt. Col. Sanders said. He volunteered for deployment to Afghanistan in 2010, came back for active duty for about a year before returning for another Afghanistan deployment in 2012.
Reflecting on over two decades of service and this past Memorial Day before his June deployment, Lt. Col. Sanders said he thinks of a painting hung up in his assessor’s office of the beaches of Normandy — an image of young soldiers under fire as they disembark off ramps and onto the beach.
“Anytime I think I’m having a bad day, I just look up at that painting. Can you imagine the age those guys were — 17- or 18-year-olds. Their whole lives were ahead of them and most of them didn’t even make it off the beach,” Lt. Col. Sanders said. “When I think of Memorial Day, I think we have to reflect back on all the sacrifices others have made in order for us to have the freedoms that we have.”
He continued to remember the feeling of coming back from a deployment and always feeling “a little bit weird” about the gradual acclimation back to civilian life. He said he has noticed, particularly in the younger generation, that some people tend to be “blinded by their blessings,” not realizing the sacrifices others have made for our country’s conception.
“If you’re out on patrol, you have no idea if the vehicle that you’re in is going to get blown up, so every day we get in our car, we go to work, we go to 7-11, we go to dinner — we don’t even think about it, we wouldn’t even imagine it’s going to be an issue that your car is going to hit an IED,” Lt. Col. Sanders said. “That’s the reality for us in America, that’s because people have the courage and the guts to leave their civilian job, put on a uniform and go to some other country to protect America.”
