By: Stephanie 5-15-07

Blake and a couple friends sitting on top of a tank.

Blake at war.

Persian Gulf War

      Blake Warren Nelson was born in Sioux City, Iowa. He has two older sisters and a younger brother. Blake liked school a lot and he was an excellent student. He attended the University of Iowa and then he went to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He also entered the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) when he went to the University. In the spring of his freshman year, the Colonel asked him if he would like to go into the Regular Army and attend West Point. He then took the exams and tests and was admitted to the academy at the age of 19 in July 1981. When he went off to the Army he had many different feelings, at one point he was scared, another he was excited, but he was always proud.

The Army was very strict. If a soldier didn’t do as he was ordered, he could go to jail. The food was ok they tried a new type of ration (what the army calls food). The food was called MRE (Meal Ready to Eat). He thought that it was pretty bad at first, but the Army’s leadership listened to the soldiers and the MREs became better. Blake’s job in the Army was to sit on Courts Martial for soldiers who have broken the rules. During his free time he would travel to interesting places near the post. In Panama, he explored the jungles and the canal, in Washington, he went scuba diving in Puget Sound and skiing on Mount Rainier, and in Texas, they would travel to Austin for the nightlife. During wartime, he had to stay with his unit all the time. He wrote letters home and to the nice people that would write to him. They would also listen to people playing guitars, and they would play touch football, or soccer.

There were many different types of uniforms. They had Full Dress Uniforms (Dress Blues), Service Uniforms (Army Green), Battle Dress Uniforms, Fatigues, PT uniforms for athletics, overalls for maintenance, Jungle Uniforms when he was stationed in Panama, and Dessert Battle Dress uniforms when he was in the Persian Gulf. Each uniform matched the position they would be in.

 The weather was very hot and cold at times from September to January, during the daytime the average temperatures reached up to about 115°, and at night about 50°. From January to February it was very rainy, wet, and cold. In March the weather was nice, but every now and then they would have blinding sandstorms.

Blake has had a lot of different experiences serving in the Persian Gulf War some sad, others funny, and some that he will remember forever. Some experiences were losing many different people he knew in the war, taking certain pills only if they were exposed to nerve gas, and it would make them go to the bathroom right away, and meeting some famous people from the military.

He left the Army at the end of 1991 and remained the Company Commander until he got out of the Army. Later he got a job in Indiana; he supervised a factory that made soap. He married his wife, Paula, in 1994. He now has two kids, Ben and Jake, he works for Time Warner Cable, and he lives in Ohio with his family.