Story courtesy of Appalachian State sports information
BOONE, N.C. ? December was a pretty good month for Appalachian State University football player Brian Stokes.
Unbeknownst to the 27-year-old from Burlington, N.C., while he was playing an integral special-teams role in Appalachian’s run to the NCAA Division I-AA national championship and earning recognition for his role as both a student-athlete and a soldier on the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS, the United States government was awarding him a Purple Heart for injuries
suffered as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq in 2004. Stokes’ Purple Heart was officially issued on Dec. 9, 2005, one day before the Mountaineers advanced to the national title game with a 29-23 win over Southern Conference-rival Furman.
However, Stokes didn’t find out about the recognition until well after Appalachian defeated Northern Iowa on Dec. 16 to win the national championship and his network television debut three days later. The Purple Heart was delivered to Stokes’ house in Burlington in January, after he had come back to ASU for the beginning of the spring semester. Finally, this past weekend, Stokes was able to go to his home three hours east of Boone to see his award for the first time.
Stokes was serving in his second tour of duty in Iraq as a sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines on Aug. 27, 2004 when a 220-kilogram (485 pounds) roadside aerial bomb was detonated next to the armored vehicle that he was in near Lutayfiah. The explosion blew away the truck’s 300-pound doors with three-inch thick glass.
“It felt like a vacuum,” Stokes said. “The pressure was unlike anything I ever felt and we disappeared in a fireball. The people behind us couldn’t see our vehicle.”
With the doors blown off, Stokes suffered shrapnel wounds in his right arm. Additionally, thanks to being so close to a detonated bomb for the third time, he suffered extensive hearing loss in his right ear.
A football standout at Burlington Williams High School in the mid-1990s, Stokes was a Shrine Bowl participant and invited walkon at East Carolina in 1997. Following an injury, Stokes left ECU before eventually enlisting in the Marine Corps in 2000. He was deployed to more than 10 countries during his time in the Marines, including the two stints in Iraq. He served in more than 200 combat missions during his second tour in Iraq in 2004, including the invasion of Fallujah.
Following the end of active duty in November 2004, Stokes and fellow Marine Wayne Norman visited Appalachian in hopes of re-enrolling in college on the G.I. Bill. But Stokes still had dreams of playing college football and met with ASU head coach Jerry Moore, who invited both Stokes and Norman to join the Mountaineers for winter conditioning. They were greeted with an ovation when Moore introduced them to their new teammates.
Stokes went on to become an integral part of Appalachian’s special teams during its run to its first-ever national championship.
He accumulated five tackles in 14 games, but was designated as the Mountaineers’ “wedge-buster” on kickoff coverage, assigned to go full speed down the field into the first line of blockers to allow teammates an unabated route to the ball carrier. In its only game of the season without Stokes, the playoff opener versus Lafayette that Stokes sat out of due to a concussion, Appalachian allowed 26 yards per kickoff return, a mark that was significantly higher than when its special-teams ace was in the lineup.
“This is not an award that I ever wanted to get,” Stokes said of the Purple Heart. “It’s not a personal achievement, but it’s special because it shows that you’re a part of a special group of people.”