Music Star's Son Back from Iraq

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Marine Corps News | Paul Kane | May 30, 2006

New York, N.Y. - It’s not everyday the son of an American country music star finds himself in combat, but it happens.

Lance Cpl. Johnny Conlee, a grunt with the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines aboard the USS Kearsarge, is the son of country music great and respected vocalist John Conlee.

The elder Conlee is a music legend with 19 songs that hit the Top Ten and five in the Top Five for country music. Among his most popular were “Rose Colored Glasses,” “Common Man,” “Domestic Life,” “I’m only in it for Love,” and “Lady Lay Down.” The Conlee family operates a farm in Tennessee.

More recently, John Conlee collaborated with two songwriters and recorded a music video called, “They Also Serve,” as an ode to military families.

“We did this video for all the members of the military and their families. It was our humble hope that they’d find it uplifting,” said Conlee while visiting his son in New York City during the Fleet Week celebrations saluting the naval services.

The music video "They Also Serve" is a tribute to military families and spotlights how “those who serve” in the armed forces and “those who wait” at home deal with their experiences. The music video was nominated by Country Music Weekly’s Readers’ Choice Award for the Favorite Patriotic Song.

Conlee’s son, Marine Lance Cpl. Conlee, recently returned from a tour in Iraq on combat operations against insurgents around Fallujah, and providing security for the December 2005 Iraqi elections.

“We know firsthand what it means to have a loved one serving,” Conlee the military father remarked on his own family’s experiences with having a son deployed. The senior Conlee served in the Army National Guard of Kentucky from 1967-1973.

“We were happy and relieved to have Johnny back from Iraq last month. It’s a sacrifice to serve and to be among those who wait. But it’s important to the country and we are very proud,” said the elder Conlee.

Lance Cpl. Conlee’s tour in Iraq was not without event.

In December 2005, while on a mission in Anbar Province, his unit was hit by an Improvised Explosive Device that wounded him and several other Marines. Lance Cpl. Johnny Conlee was awarded the Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds received in combat.

He said it was not easy to tell his family, but he called home immediately: “Dad, there’s no right way to say this, but I’ve been wounded. I’m okay.”

But Conlee the Marine was undeterred and went back out on patrol the very night he was wounded. “I’m definitely going to stay a grunt. I love it,” said Lance Cpl. Conlee.

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