Chris Youngblood was 30 years old before he decided to join the Georgia Army National Guard.

During his 12-year military service, Youngblood fought in two wars within 10 years. His first deployment to the war zone was to Iraq in 2005, just a year after he joined the national guard’s Second Battalion out of Cordele.

Youngblood returned from the war zone in 2006 but he wasn’t the same man.

He returned home a wounded combat infantry veteran.

Youngblood was presented the Purple Heart for his bravery in Iraq.

“We were basically out on a mission to give away food on the day that I was injured,” Youngblood said. “We were going around to different villages. We had some of the 102nd Airborne guys with us at the time. As we were getting ready to move farther south, our vehicle was hit by an anti-tank device.”

Youngblood was serving as the gunner and the explosion blew him out of the vehicle, injuring his back and both knees.

“I was more fortunate than my sergeant was,” Youngblood said. “He was much more injured than I was.” 

While stationed at Camp Striker, a smaller camp than Camp Liberty within the compound, south of Baghdad, Youngblood and his unit dealt a lot with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices).

“They buried a lot IEDs on the sides of the roads or stuck them on animals,” he said. “We came across a few during different times as we road around in Bradleys.”

Youngblood said there were many American casualties during that time.

“We had a bunch of casualties, actually,” lamented Youngblood. “There were a lot of deaths, too.”

Most of the deaths and injuries were as the result of IEDs, which were controlled by remote control or by cellphones.

“A of them were there to the point that where we walked over them and rode over them all the time,” Youngblood said.

The number of deaths and injuries due to the IEDs could have been much higher than they were had the enemies been able to detonate them, Youngblood said.

A lot of times, the enemy could run and detonate one of them and then run back into a nearby village, he said.

“They would just simply blend back into the crowd then,” Youngblood said. 

Five years after recovering from war injuries he sustained in Iraq, Youngblood, a 1992 graduate of Putnam County High School in Eatonton, was back on the battlefield. 

In 2010, he found himself in Afghanistan. At that time, he was with Charley Company out of Americus.

Asked how he was able to endure his time as a soldier, Youngblood pondered the question before he answered.

“You think about it all the time,” Youngblood said. “It doesn’t leave you.”

He realizes what he did during both wars, but is able to separate them from the life he now lives.

“I realize that that’s part of the past,” Youngblood said. “But even so, it’s still in my mind. It’s certainly something I’ll never forget.”

Youngblood joined the guard in 2004 while still employed at Horton Homes in Eatonton.

“I was working at a job that just made me feel like I was missing out on something,” Youngblood said. “I wanted something more in my life. I worked under Howell Cardwell. He was my boss at that time.”

Cardwell now serves as the police chief in Eatonton.

He decided to join the guard.

“I guess you could say I just wanted to make a difference,” said Youngblood, who eventually rose to the rank of sergeant. “I wanted to do something more with my life. And with the guard, I knew that I could be part of something dfferent. I knew they sometimes are deployed when a tornado happens. I knew I could go out on things like that and try to help someone and do some good.”

He still remembers what one of his aunts told him many years ago.

“My Aunt Carol Davis told me that you have a servant’s heart,” recalled Youngblood, noting that his aunt and his mother, Janet Griswell, live in Hiwassee. “I simply just see myself as me. I get up and go to work everyday and take care of my family and do what is necessary when it comes to my job.”

Youngblood, now 49, worked for a year as a detention officer at the Baldwin County Jail before he was promoted to the road patrol as a sworn deputy. He worked as a deputy for about four years before he was promoted to detective, investigating crimes varying from murder to theft cases. While he is still assigned to the detective division, his role is a little different than it used to be. He now is the evidence custodian, keeping up with all evidence associated with criminal cases.

“I take certain evidence to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab, and things of that nature,” Youngblood said. 

In the event of a homicide, Youngblood still rolls with fellow detectives to the crime scene to assist in whatever way he can.

He said what he learned in the military was in line with some of what he since had learned in his law enfacement career.

“It’s a balancing act, I think,” Youngblood said.

He was asked what it’s like today when he goes to the gun range for training exercises in his law enforcement capacity, and whether any of it makes him reflect on his military years.

“It somewhat reminds me of that time, the gunfire, and the smells the gunpowder,” Youngblood said.

Asked how he feels when someone walks up to him to thank him for what he did in service, he said: “It’s nice of them, but I really don’t need that. I’m not looking for that. I think of the ones that were lost, who didn’t come back home with us.”

He considers himself fortunate to be have been one of the ones that God protected and returned home to his family and friends.

Youngblood said he often thinks of those who didn’t make it back home alive.

He got out of the Georgia Army National Guard in 2016 but he said his service is something that runs deep in his veins.

When he is away from the sheriff’s office, Youngblood enjoys being with his family. He has been married for nearly 29 years. He and his wife, Lynn, have three children — two of whom are grown, while their youngest, Dylan, is 12 and a sixth-grader.

“I’ll always do for any of my military brothers and sisters, just like I would for my law enforcement brothers and sisters,” Youngblood said.

“Those were a group of guys who just like it is in law enforcement, were my brotherhood,” Youngblood said, as tears filled his eyes. “Once you get into that brotherhood, you realize that you’d do anything for them at anytime. If the phone rings, and needs me, I’m there. That’s just something that’s in my blood. We are family.”