MOWEAQUA, Jul 12, 2010 (Herald and Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
On the face of it, "GG" is just your average buckskin-colored horse with bright eyes and a glossy mane.
But the gentle animal is capable of reaching reality escape velocity when its owner, Nelson "Gene" Blakey, swings his trim 140-pound, 75-year-old frame into the saddle. Letting GG clip-clop through some scenic Central Illinois trail, it's easy for Blakey to mellow out and forget the dogs of war, still snarling at so many of his friends.
Blakey, who lives in the bucolic quietude of rural Moweaqua, says the rest of the world is one troubled place. And he should know. He retired in June after an extraordinary 56-year career with the Illinois Army National Guard. He'd joined in 1953, just as the Korean "police action" cooled and Dwight D. Eisenhower, forged as a leader in World War II, became president.
Blakey would serve as a career soldier in the Guard for 40 years, finally required by regulations to retire at age 60 in 1994 after he had reached the rank of chief warrant officer 4. But within a month, he was back with the Guard, this time as a civilian worker, actually taking a job vacated by a retiring staffer who used to work under him in the personnel division of Camp Lincoln in Springfield, the Guard's headquarters.
The old soldier talks about his long career with the careful caveat that he's not had to serve in war zones himself. But he's handled the transit papers and personnel stuff for many who did, able to often put remembered faces to the names and serial numbers on reams of documents. And when some of those people didn't come back after being dispatched to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, Blakey felt a stab to his heart and recalls them in the parade ground of his mind all over again.
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He recalls, too, the emotional toll on families caused by loved ones serving half a world away. He knows the collateral damage that spreads out from such deployments, the costly sacrifices citizen soldiers and their families lay on the altar of freedom day in, and day out.
"So many conflicts, everywhere," he says. "We've been mobilizing Guard units since, what, 1990 I think it was, and it's never stopped since. And it's just my opinion, but I don't think it ever will. I'm just surprised we haven't had more of that 9/11 in New York. A lot of them have tried, but they don't get it done, thank God."
The son of a miner who grew up in Edinburg riding horses from the age of 10, he was introduced to the Guard at 17 by a farmer he worked for.
"I liked it; I liked the discipline," he says. "A lot of people don't like people getting in their face, yelling, but I did."
Universally known to all ranks as "Mr. B," he never lost that sense of esprit de corps and literally made the Guard his family. His met his second wife, Bonita, while serving, and she had been a 27-year career soldier before her own retirement in 1998. Her husband became so much a part of the daily life in Springfield that his second sortie into retirement, for good this time, has left his fellow soldiers maneuvering around a sense of incompleteness.
"I don't think we will ever find anyone to replace him," said Sgt. Maj. Donnie Parker of Lincoln. "I think we can find someone to do the job ... But as far as the person, I do not think you will ever find anyone who will compare with the person that Mr. Blakey is."
Blakey's person has proved to be pretty tough, too, even when faced with things that a trot with GG can't cure.
In 1999, he underwent treatment for a cancer invading his sinus cavity and then had radiation and chemotherapy again in 2003 to deal with a cancer targeting his stomach. He'd been trotting along nicely until February when he faced a frontal assault from viral meningitis, which put him off work for a month and a half while he and modern medicine prevailed after an intense counteroffensive.
Now he's hale, hearty and home, watching that troubled world beyond the paddock gate with seasoned, slightly sad blue eyes and determined to make the most of every moment with his wife and family.
And, whether the spur to go out riding springs from sad or happy feelings, the old soldier is looking forward to being out yonder with his trusty steed, far from the madding crowd, moving steadily along the country trails that always lead to peace.
treid@herald-review.com 421-7977
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