Freedom Remembered

Born: June 13, 1981 in Bell County, Texas
Died: December 9, 2007 in Texas

Sgt. Jacob Blaylock of Houston, Texas grew up in Calumet City. He was one of a tight group of soldiers who had been called back to active service from civilian life. Jacob was tormented by the deaths of his friends in Iraq and struggling with problems at home. “I have failed myself,” he wrote in a note found later in his car. “I have let those around me down.” He won’t be counted among the casualties of the Iraq war. But he, like many soldiers, was haunted by its ghosts. Jacob was a fun-loving man when he went to Iraq. In photographs, he tends to be the one giving a thumbs-up to the camera. When he came home from war, though, his family said he wanted a beer, he wanted a cigarette, and he never wanted to go back to battle. His depression medication, from doctors who were treating him for post-traumatic stress disorder, arrived the day after the suicide. He was 26. He left a note behind in his glove box for his family.

Burial is at Houston National Cemetery in Houston, Texas – Sec S1 Site 151

The Sgt Jacob Raymon Blaylock by Freedom Remembered, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.