Bill Blood - A New American Hero

The Oklahoman Times

Western Oklahoma’s own, William “Bill” Blood, a rancher from Texas County, is no stranger to adversity.  The youngest of three raised on his family ranch had his childhood taken from him by tumult and tragedy.  His parents divorced and his mother departed with his two older sisters, leaving the boy and his father alone on thousands of acres of open range with a small, fledgling cattle operation.  Worse, not long after, his father met his demise in a gun accident.  Shortly after that, his would-be stepfather lost his life in a tractor accident.  

There was relative peace during his teenage years.  He lived with a family on another ranch near Rocky, Oklahoma until graduating from high school.  Afterwards, he returned to his family’s abandoned ranch with his sister and her husband.  It was a short homecoming as an altercation between a young but spirited Mr. Blood and the brother-in-law landed him in police custody.  Charges were ultimately dropped.  Alone, with nowhere to turn or go, Mr. Blood walked away from ranching and his Oklahoma roots and found himself in the Marine Corps.  

Excepting for a Congressional Medal of Honor citation, Mr. Blood’s official military records are vague at best.  But through a patchwork of acquaintances and purported fellow service members, Mr. Blood appears to have at least passed through recruit training in San Diego and the 3rd Marine regiment headquartered in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.  After that, the trail goes cold for over a decade with various descriptions depicting Mr. Blood as part anti-social and part anti-establishment.  A flurry of stories accompany these perceptions, including brawling with several Recon Marines at once during a Tongan amphibious assault exercise; a fight with two second lieutenants in the Australian Outback that nearly got him court-martialed; a brief period of being labeled AWOL during a training event near the Alaskan Arctic Circle; scuffles with training personnel in the desert of California; surviving a CH-46 helicopter crash in a tropical jungle; an arrest in Tijuana (confirmed); and lastly, many rumors of his Military Occupational Specialty (MOS in Corps parlance) that appear to at least include a stint as a Combat Photographer of all things, until an “Overzealous, campaign ribbon mongering, ass-kissing pogue” of an officer in command of his unit sent him off to guard duty for belligerence.   

Whatever the real history is, we may never know. Mr. Blood doesn't ruminate on much of anything with the press.  However, the public would get its first detailed look at him as a wounded but battle grizzled veteran following a series of infamously bloody campaigns in the middle-east.  Mr. Blood railed against the media coverage, completed his tours and returned to Oklahoma.  He tried to burrow himself back into obscurity as a rancher, rebuilding his family home again after his mother died and sister divorced and fled to a trailer park in Texas.   

Mr. Blood abhors attention only slightly less than he detests attention seekers.  So he became an unintended figure of notoriety when, like Bob Dylan snubbing the Nobel prize committee, he inexplicably remained radio silent on a presidential invite to attend a Medal of Honor ceremony in which he was to be the recipient.  A local newspaper picked up on the apparent dissidence and published his citation to a ground swell of interest and support toward Oklahoma’s native son.  It occurred amid political scandal in the state’s senate race between an incumbent and several challengers and the result was… historical.   

Since arriving on the national political scene, Americans have become familiar with Mr. Blood’s personal brand of American Patriotism. He’s not rooted in founding principles. He doesn't fire off fireworks on Independence Day. He has a healthy distrust of power and wealth. He isn't galloping around the country wrapped up in the Stars and Stripes preaching a nationalistic ideal. Nor is he stumping for organized religion. He has surely seen all preceding turn for the worst in his military experiences in the shadow of governments and people gone wrong.   

Different from all his senatorial peers, he doesn't allow himself to spew party rhetoric.  As a close friend and member of his staff says for him, “The world is too complicated for that shit.”   

Bill is an enigma in U.S. politics.  His voting record squarely represents social awareness no doubt made possible plying the land, defending the defenseless, and fighting injustice. He’s unpolished yet stable, collected, introspective.  He seems to see the world not only through the eyes of a common man, but also through the eyes of an eagle soaring above and surveying the bigger picture with the common man unaware he’s lost in it.   

Amid that bigger picture, is a lone flag Mr. Blood flies at his ranch.  It’s a reference for those wayward souls seeking absolution.  The flag looks as though it were the remnants of that taken from a guidon after years of being on a battle front.  It’s a weathered Marine Corps flag that he can look out upon every blessed morning and grateful night against a colorful palate of prairie and sky.  A reminder for him, colored as blood, that all things that matter come to you through hard work and sacrifice and the true ideals to revere are integrity, justice and freedom.