Growing up in Whitehall, he was known as "Chuck," a student leader at Baldwin High School with an interest in math and science, a young man respectful of neighbors, referring to them as "Mr." or "Mrs."

	AP Photo/Courtesy of the England family
	Spc. Charles Graner, left, and Spc. Lynndie England are shown in this 2003 photo taken while the couple vacationed in Virginia Beach, Va. RELATED STORIES Rumsfeld takes responsibility in Iraqi prison scandal, apologizes World tribunal could probe abuses RELATED LINKS Transcript of Senate hearing Transcript of House hearing Associated Press photo journal

Today, he's known as Army Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., a central figure in the worldwide firestorm over prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Graner, 36, is one of seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Maryland, who have been charged with assault, cruelty, indecent acts and mistreatment of detainees.

Yesterday, Army Pfc. Lynndie England, 21, of Fort Ashby, W.Va., who was transferred out of Iraq after becoming pregnant with Graner's child, became the seventh person accused by the military of assaulting detainees and conspiring to mistreat them.

Photographs distributed worldwide show Graner, England and others smiling and giving thumbs-up signs while Iraqi prisoners are being abused.

Graner's involvement shocked neighbors on Skyvue Drive in Whitehall, where he grew up and where his parents, Chuck and Irma Jean, still reside.

John Burner, who has known the family for 30 years, was visibly taken aback and dismayed yesterday.

"I feel so bad," he said. "He was a real good guy. I have nothing but good things to say about Chuck. Never once did Chuck give anyone a problem. It was always 'Yes, sir' or 'No, sir.' He wouldn't even call my wife and me by our first names. It was always 'Mr.' and "Mrs.' "

But public records indicate that Graner had troubles at work as a correctional officer in the state prison system in Greene County -- a history of disciplinary actions that culminated in his firing in 2000. He was later reinstated by an arbitrator.

Graner's marriage dissolved in 1997 and his wife obtained three protection-from-abuse orders against him in the ensuing four years. In her first petition, she accused him of threatening to kill her. She made other allegations of abuse in subsequent petitions.

Graner graduated from Baldwin High School in 1986. The yearbook shows him smiling in pictures with the Student Council, Student Council Executive Board, Science Club and Math League.

He joined the Marines after graduating, and has the Marines' eagle emblem and the letters USMC tattooed on his right arm.

KDKA-TV reporter Ross Guidotti served with Graner in a military police company when both were members of the Marine Corps Reserve. For about six weeks in early 1991, both were guards at a prison camp for Iraqis captured during the Gulf War.

"From what I saw, he did not have a malevolent side," Guidotti said. He remembered Graner as "a funny guy, outgoing, and quick to crack a joke."

He said he was shocked to hear that Graner has been accused of mistreating prisoners, in part because of the training they and other guards received years ago. "It was drilled into our minds well before we left the continental U.S. what we were allowed to do, and not allowed to do, relative to the treatment of prisoners."

Another member of the company, Leo Bonner of Charles Town, W.Va., recalled Graner as "one of the guys who kept our spirits up."

In comments from parents published in the back of the high school yearbook, Graner's parents wrote: "Chuck, you have always made your father and me proud of you. You are the best. We love you, Mom and Dad."

Marital strife
Graner was still living in Whitehall when he married the former Staci Michelle Dean, of Ohiopyle, Fayette County, on June 15, 1990.

On their marriage license application, Graner listed his occupation as construction worker; she was 19 and unemployed.

They moved to Uniontown and had two children, Brittni Stacia, born Jan. 21, 1991, and Dean Charles Graner, born two years later on Feb. 9, 1993.

By 1997, the marriage was foundering. In May, Staci filed for an emergency custody ruling, alleging that Graner had taken the children and wouldn't give them back. She filed for divorce on June 4, 1997, contending in court papers that Graner had thrown her and her children out of their home.

Graner contended in later court filings that they hadn't lived together since April and that Staci left the marriage to become involved in another relationship.

At this point, he was working at the State Correctional Institution Greene in Greene County, according to court papers.

In June, Staci filed for the first of the three protection-from-abuse orders, alleging that in May he'd threatened to kill her, made harassing telephone calls and told her mother that "she could keep his guns because he did not need them for what he was going to do to her.''

Common Pleas Judge Ralph Warman issued an order on June 16, 1997, barring Graner from having any contact with Staci for six months except for exchanging their children for visitation. Those exchanges were to take place at the Uniontown police station.

Staci was back before Warman on Feb. 2, 1998, contending that Graner had stalked and verbally abused her, hidden her keys and thrown her against a wall and into furniture. She also testified that Graner offered to move out of their former home so that she could return with the children, then installed a secret video camera and showed her tapes of herself.

The night before she went back to court, she said he crouched and hid in her laundry room until she walked by, then jumped out to scare her.

Warman issued another protection-from-abuse and no-contact order, this time for a year, and ordered Charles to return the tapes.

The Graners' divorce was final in 2000. She sought yet another protection-from-abuse order in March 2001, filing a five-page handwritten statement detailing an encounter in which she said Graner told her she was still his wife and tried to get her to go to bed with him.

She said he dragged her around the house by the hair, banged her head off the floor and tried to throw her down the stairs in front of their weeping, frightened children.

Warman issued another one-year protection-from-abuse and no-contact order on March 22, 2001. By then, Graner was listed in court papers as working for TOPS Temporaries at Sony in New Stanton.

Staci, who remarried last year, could not be reached and did not respond to requests for an interview. Her father-in-law said she and her family have been besieged by the media and she is trying to shield her children from news accounts about their father.

Trouble at work
Before he was called to active duty on March 5, 2003, Graner had a checkered career as a corrections officer at the State Correctional Institution Greene.

Graner served as a corrections officer from May 20, 1996, until he was called to active military duty. He was disciplined six times for problems at work: two written reprimands, a one-day suspension, two five-day suspensions and a dismissal that was reduced to a three-day suspension by an arbitrator.

All but the last of the disciplinary actions were for tardiness or improperly scheduling leave.

The most serious incident occurred June 16, 2000, when prison officials fired Graner for walking off the job and refusing mandatory overtime at the end of his shift.

Graner filed a grievance, and after a hearing in July 2002, the dismissal was reduced to a three-day suspension. He received back pay for all but three days of his time off.

According to arbitration records, the incident began at 4:30 a.m. when a supervisor told Graner another officer had called off sick and he would have to work an additional shift from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Initially, Graner didn't say he couldn't accept the additional work, but as the end of his regular shift approached, he told supervisors he couldn't work overtime because his estranged wife would be dropping off their children, then 7 and 9, at 8 a.m. without checking to see if he was home.

The union contract allowed workers to refuse overtime for "good and sufficient" reasons, but supervisors told Graner it was too late for them to get anyone else to work and ordered him to stay. Instead, Graner left without telling anyone.

In his decision, the arbitrator said Graner had an acceptable reason for refusing to stay, but said Graner didn't handle the situation correctly and shouldn't have left without telling anyone.

"[Graner] exercised extremely poor judgment in how he sought to be excused from working mandated overtime and in failing to inform his supervisors he would not work," the arbitrator wrote.

There was no indication that Graner had any additional problems before he was called to active duty.

At the time prison officials fired Graner, he already was on a last warning from the prison for previous scheduling problems, which the arbitrator described as "an abysmal record."

The allegations
In some of the pictures showing humiliation and abuse of prisoners, Graner is seen with England, who is now four months pregnant with Graner's child and stationed in North Carolina.

In The New Yorker magazine article, "Torture at Abu Ghraib," Seymour M. Hersh wrote that in one picture England "stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid."

England is seen smiling for the camera in one picture, cigarette in her mouth, as she leans forward and points at the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi. Another photo shows her holding a leash that encircles the neck of a naked Iraqi man lying on his side on a cellblock floor, his face contorted.

England yesterday was accused of "assaulting Iraqi detainees on multiple occasions;" conspiring with Graner to mistreat prisoners; committing an indecent act; and committing acts "that were prejudicial to good order and discipline and were of nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces."

England's relatives yesterday insisted she was following orders when she posed for the pictures.

Graner is one of two corrections officers in civilian life who have been charged with abuse as Army MPs. The other, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, of Buckingham, Va., was a corrections officer in a Virginia prison.

According to the investigative report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, Spc. Sabrina Harman of the 372nd MP Company stated in her sworn statement regarding an incident where a detainee was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes and penis "that her job was to keep detainees awake" and that military intelligence officials talked to Graner.

"It is [Graner] and Frederick's job to do things for MI [military intelligence] and OGA [other government agencies] to get these people to talk," she said.

A civilian contract translator said he saw naked detainees ordered by Graner and Frederick "to admit what they did."

"They made them do strange exercises by sliding on their stomach, jump up and down, throw water on them and made them wet, called them all kinds of names such as 'gays' and 'do they like to make love to guys,' then they handcuffed their hands together and their legs with shackles and started to stack them on top of each other."

Yellow ribbons
No one was at the Graner home in Whitehall yesterday afternoon. Two large bows made from yellow ribbons flanked the home's front entrance. In a second-floor window was an electric candle that neighbors say is dutifully lit nightly in Graner's honor.

In the driveway behind the home was Graner's Ford truck. A front license plate has "Jesus" and a cross on it.

There also was no one at the Pleasant Hills home of his sister, Carri Joyce. The house has a yellow-ribbon bow identical to those on the parents' house.