Blake served in the Marine Corps Infantry in Iraq from 2006
to 2007. During that time, he was
injured after being involved in three IED explosions and also experienced the
loss of a good friend. Servicemen who
experience situations like these often struggle the most once they are
home. This may be because during a war,
they are doing their job and trying to stay alive. They must remain focused, and can’t dwell on
what takes place while they are overseas.
However, once they are home they have all the time in the world to
think. At the same time, they are trying
to learn how to live life outside of a warzone.
This was the case for Blake.
The following is from an interview with Blake:
“The
hard part about coming home isn't what I had to do when I put a uniform on, it
was what I had to learn to do when I took it off, whether it was for a night or
permanently. It was certainly unpleasant while I was still on active duty, not
so much for me but for everyone near me. I drank constantly and figured it was
completely fine provided I always made it to work somewhat sober in the
morning. I felt physically fine, and didn't have too many symptoms as I was
living on base at the time. Eventually shit caught up with me and I found
myself on a locked unit and then to rehab. After I had been in rehab for a few
weeks, my doctor there told me my problem wasn't with booze it was with PTSD,
which had never really crossed my mind.”
At the end of Blake’s
time in the Corps, he tried to go back overseas to fight in Afghanistan. He was told he could not do so, and got out
of the military. Blake went home not
knowing what to do with himself, as he was no longer Cpl. Gilroy. He struggled to have normal conversation with
other people, and had trouble talking with people who could not understand
him. Many people would want to know, “Did
you kill anyone?” which was a question Blake hated. He also couldn’t focus around too many people
at once, because he was constantly worried about what they might do or attempt. This made normal tasks like grocery shopping
very difficult. His neighbors saw him as
just a “crazy veteran” besides one man who was a Marine veteran himself.
It’s been a long
time since Blake had an uninterrupted sleep.
Most nights he sleeps on the couch to be closer to the door. Blake says, “There's a part of me that is never going to leave the war, and while
those of us that have been there understand it, there's no teaching anyone else
the truth about it.”
In February 2014,
Blake went to Nashville to write with professional songwriters, Ryan Creamer
and Lance Carpenter. He wrote about the
challenge he still faces every day, coming home from war.
“They taught me how to fight, how to shoot,
how to stay alive,
How to win, how to save, how to take a life,
They taught me everything I needed to know,
But they didn’t teach me how to come home.”
Thank you for your
service, Blake. Your song will touch
other veterans who share the same struggles as you do.
