Posted on 01/17/2006 11:11:27 AM PST by Cagey
LONG FORK - The steep mountainsides in western Pike County are painted in the drabbest of winter browns and grays now, but already there is a feeling in the air that the land is ready to break out with spring color in a few weeks, bringing new life, new hope.
Maybe that's a good omen for a young man back home after surviving the meat grinder of Iraq but still struggling to cope with the psychological shocks of all he's seen and done, shocks that ultimately cut short his career in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Millions of Americans remember him only as the "Marlboro Man" -- the grubby, exhausted Marine lance corporal with a cigarette dangling from lips in a famous 2004 photograph from the battle for Fallujah. The picture has become one of the iconic images of the Iraq war.
Around Pike County, though, he's just plain Blake Miller, 21 and a civilian again. Today, he's intent on getting over the black-outs and the nightmares, and building a new life with his new wife, Jessica.
And the young man whose image became a symbol of the war now grapples with his own feelings on the conflict and questions the continued U.S. presence in Iraq.
Today, he doesn't look much like that 2004 photograph. He's clean-cut, with brown hair and a thin mustache, still close to his high school football playing weight of 155. He still smokes a little over a pack of Marlboros per day but has cut down from the five packs or more he was burning through every day at the height of the Fallujah battle.
He still carries some shrapnel scars, and some scars you can't see.
"I could tell you stories about Iraq that would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck," he said. "And I could tell you things that were great over there. But that still wouldn't tell you what it was actually like. You had to be there and go through it to really understand."
Trauma gets to him
Miller said he began having problems soon after returning from Iraq early last year -- sleeplessness, nightmares, times when he would "blank out," not knowing what he was doing or where he was. Then, just after Hurricane Katrina last fall, Miller was sent to New Orleans, where he and other Marines waded through flooded neighborhoods, recovering bodies. Somewhere along the way, all the stresses piled up, and they boiled over a few days later while Miller was on board the USS Iwo Jima, a Navy ship on hurricane duty off the Gulf Coast.
"I was coming out of the galley, when this sailor made a whistling noise that resembled the sound of a rocket-propelled grenade," Miller said. "You had to have heard that sound to duplicate it. I don't know why he did it. Maybe he was just poking fun at Marines. But something just triggered and I flipped out.
"They said that I grabbed him, threw him against the bulkhead and put him down on the deck, with me on top of him. But I have no recollection of it whatsoever."
There had been some other incidents as well. Eventually, three military psychiatrists diagnosed Miller as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a set of serious psychological symptoms that afflict many who have been in life-threatening situations. The Marines, concluding that Miller could be a threat to himself or to his teammates in any future combat situation, granted him an early but honorable discharge.
Miller became a civilian Nov. 10 -- on the 230th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Marine Corps in 1775, and the one-year anniversary of the date when the photograph from Fallujah hit the newspapers.
"At first, I was irate because I wanted to stay in, and make a career out of it," he said. "I liked being a Marine; it was the only thing I had known for the better part of three years. But I decided that this is what I'm stuck with, so I've got to deal with it."
Now, Miller regularly sees a therapist (the government is picking up the bill) and he says he is doing well. He says he wants the public to better understand post-traumatic stress disorder and realize that those who have it don't deserve any public stigma.
"The biggest reason I did this interview is because I want people to know that PTSD is not something people come down with because they're crazy. It's an anxiety disorder, where you've experienced something so traumatic that you were close to death.
"A lot of Vietnam vets suffered from PTSD, but nobody took the time to understand or help them. Now, some of those guys are living on the street. You look at their situation, and you think about what they did for their country and where they are now ... that hurts."
How a Marine is made
He has gone through other changes as well, including doubts about the war.
"When I was in the service, my opinion was whatever the commander in chief's opinion was," he said. "But after I got out, I really started thinking about it. ... The biggest question I have is how you can make war on an entire country, when a certain group from that country is practicing terrorism against you. It's as if a gang from New York went to Iraq and blew up some stuff, and Iraq started a war against us because of that.
"I agree with taking care of terrorism. But after terrorism was dealt with, the way it was after Fallujah, maybe that was the time for us to pull out. That's just my opinion. It blows my mind that we've continued to drag this out."
James Blake Miller grew up in Pike County, the oldest of three active, athletic brothers. He decided very early that, like his grandfather, he would become a Marine.
Greg Napier, Miller's freshman homeroom teacher at Shelby Valley High School, recalls that when he asked new students to list their career goals, Miller wrote: U.S. Marine Corps. Napier also became Miller's football coach and for three years watched him use heart and hustle to make up for his lack of size. Miller worked so hard that, after his junior year, he severely injured his shoulder lifting weights and had to give up football.
"I think that was the saddest I ever saw him," Napier said. "He was afraid he wouldn't get into the Marines because of his shoulder, but they did take him."
David Bowling, who taught Miller in shop class, recalls him as a "go-to" guy, who could be relied on to take responsibility and finish projects, traits that the Marine Corps values.
Miller joined the Marines after graduating from high school in 2003 and was assigned to the infantry. He went to Iraq the next year with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines and became a part of the Marine force assembled to clear insurgents out of Fallujah. The monthlong operation still is remembered as perhaps the toughest of the war.
Even now, Miller struggles trying to describe it.
"It's not exactly something I like to talk about. You see movies where somebody gets shot. It's nothing to see somebody get shot, that's just a movie.
"But when you see it in real life, it's completely different ... the feeling you have afterward is completely different. Even when you're being shot at, and you're returning fire ... whether you've hit anybody or not ... it's knowing that you're actually shooting at somebody. At the time you don't think about it ... but afterward, it's mind-boggling, it really is."
On the second day of the battle, Miller and some buddies found themselves on the roof of a building, under heavy sniper fire. Into the action rushed Luis Sinco, a Los Angeles Times photographer who was embedded with Miller's outfit.
"We had no idea he was coming up the stairs; in fact, we almost shot him," Miller said. "But when he got up there, he decided to snap some pictures."
Sinco recalls that he took cover behind a wall, and that a Marine came over, sat down beside him and lit a cigarette. It was Miller. Sinco raised his camera and fired the shutter.
When Sinco got ready to electronically transmit his photos back to the Los Angeles Times later that night, he wasn't very impressed with the picture. It was just another shot of another Marine. Indeed, it was the last picture he selected to send to the paper that day. It turned out to be perhaps the most memorable picture of the war so far.
Sinco, who has stayed in touch with Miller ever since, said he thought his editors would be more interested in action pictures of Marines shooting, running and kicking down doors.
"But somehow that portrait just resonated with everyone who saw it," Sinco said. "It's as if all the emotions of the war converged on Blake's face at that moment: bravery, doubt, hope, fatigue, despair. It's all written on his face."
The Herald-Leader carried the photo on its front page the next day. It was carried in more than 100 U.S. newspapers, put on national television, and published all over the world. Miller's name didn't become public until a few days later, though family members and friends back in Pike County immediately recognized him. By then newspapers were calling him the Marlboro Man -- a title Miller was never totally comfortable with, believing that he was no more deserving of attention than any other Marine at Fallujah.
Shortly after the photograph appeared, he was told that Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was on the way to see him.
"The general said, 'You're a pretty famous Marine today,'" Miller recalled. "I said, 'With all due respect, sir, I don't understand what's going on.' He said, your picture is all over the United States right now. They were saying the picture would go into history books, and I thought that they were joking."
Looking to the future
Luis Sinco says the Marine Corps offered to pull Miller out of the Fallujah battle then and there, not wanting the suddenly famous Marine to be injured or killed. But Miller refused to go.
He did receive tons of mail: gifts of Marlboro cigarettes from all 50 states, even gifts sent by President Bush -- plus a lot of ribbing from fellow Marines.
Miller kept a low profile when he came home to Pike County on leave early last year, after his unit's return from Iraq. His mother said that he insisted he was no hero and wanted no hoopla. He has continued to decline interviews until an appearance on CBS earlier this month.
Miller began dating Jessica Holbrooks, a girl he had known since both were children, not long after getting home. A long-range romance developed, with Miller driving 700-mile round trips from Camp Lejeune, N.C., to see her each weekend. He said that after running up more than $2,600 worth of speeding tickets, enough was enough. He and Jessica married last June.
Problems with post-traumatic stress have cast a cloud over what has been an otherwise joyous time for the two. Nevertheless, they are looking to the future. Jessica has completed her bachelor's at Pikeville College and hopes for a career in psychology. Blake is waiting for his Marine benefits to fully kick in and is thinking of starting a business.
He and Jessica now live with her grandparents on Long Fork in western Pike County. They plan to build a home of their own nearby.
"Right now," Miller says, "I'm just glad to be here."
Please honor the man service do NOT exaggerate it. Khe Shan, Pork Chop Hill, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Omaha Beach were meat grinders. Iraq is NOT.
opinions vary...
Absolutely agree.
God Bless him. I hope he beat the hell outta that stupid, immature squid.
Maybe he accidentally made a whistling sound that sounded like an RPG. It is doubtful the sailor had ever heard an RPG.
Fact don't.
Marine Bump!
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Unless the meat being ground is yours or the guy's next to you. Or, your son's, husband's or brother's meat. Then it's a meat grinder.
I think it's fair enough to call Fallujah a meat grinder.
The Japanese really hosed and dumped more than 1,000 Marines before they even reached the shoreline.
LOL
Leave it to the MSM to take advantage of him to advance their little agenda. How about doing stories on the thousands and thousands of vets who have no doubts about what we're doing in Iraq and are doing just fine (going to college, starting families, starting businesses) after having left the service?
U.S. personnel 6,821 Killed 19,217 Wounded 2,648 Combat Fatigue Total 28,686
ALL US KIA in Iraq Nov 2004 period that includes the Battle of Fallugha was fought. 11-2004 137.
Respect this man's suffering. Respect this man's sacrifice. Respect this man's courage. Please, DO not exaggerate it.
He's got the analogy all wrong. But hey, he did his time, I won't take that away from him.
Understood, he has what for some of us, our fathers and for many more their grandfathers would call the 1,000 yard stare.
"Since he was there, I'll let him make the call."
Me too. His first-hand experience is more accurate than my stateside opinion and historical number crunching.
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