HM3 Travis Youngblood
21 JULY 2005
HM3 TRAVIS YOUNGBLOOD
On the 16th of July a government vehicle pulled up to the family home on Long Island at which Laura Youngblood was staying. A Navy Chief Petty Officer dressed in khakis exited the vehicle. Her heart sank. Laura rubbed her pregnant belly as the Chief related how HM3 Travis Youngblood had been near Hit, 85 miles northwest of Baghdad, the day before. An improvised explosive device (IED) had detonated near his Marines, and Travis had been hit in the neck and both legs with shrapnel. “Oh, he’s alive,” thought Laura, “Let’s just focus on that.”
Five days later another government vehicle pulled up to the home. This time the Chief wore dress whites.
Travis Levy Youngblood joined the Navy after disappointment with post-high school jobs in a supermarket and an auto repair garage. His father, also a Navy veteran, had encouraged him to join the service and see the world. “Like Daddy, like son,” had been Travis’ mantra after enlisting. Laura was herself a former Corpsman, she and Travis met in 1999 while both were in training at Camp Pendleton. They dated only a month before eloping to Las Vegas. A son, Hunter, followed the next year. Now 26 years old, Travis had been in Iraq since January 2005, deployed in support of the II Marine Expeditionary Force. The couple had spent two weeks in Great Lakes just before Travis left his usual job in the overseas screening department of Naval Hospital Great Lakes. During this time Laura had become pregnant with their second child, a girl. She retreated to her family home on Long Island to await his return, sleeping by the phone for seven months. The last time he called, July 5th, they could talk for only three minutes. “All he said was, ‘Talk to me.'”
Tragically, just a few hours before the Chief appeared this day, a letter from Travis arrived. He wrote for the first time in graphic detail about a recent attack that had claimed ten of his Marines. “We literally had to move rocks and debris to find hands, legs and other parts so we could send them home.” He was resigned that, “…any day I’m here could be the day I die.” Travis’ letter also described in loving terms how he wanted to name their unborn daughter “Emma,” a name that, “…just makes me think of a cute little girly girl.”
That night Laura went on-line to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent website that compiles Pentagon data. Travis was the 1,774th US serviceman to die in Iraq. “People gotta learn to put faces to these numbers,” was her comment.
Travis’ 6-year-old son refused to believe his father was not coming home. HM3 Youngblood is interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 21 JUL 26
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Amario, Christine. “Sigh of Relief, Then Sorrow.” CHINFO News Clips, Navy Office of Information, 26 July 2005.
Find a Grave website. “HM3 Travis Levy Youngblood”. AT: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14286761/travis_levy-youngblood, Retrieved 26 June 2026.
“Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Travis L. Youngblood.” Honor the Fallen website. AT: https://thefallen.militarytimes.com/navy-hospital-corpsman-3rd-class-travis-l-youngblood/994294, retrieved 26 June 2026.
