Junior Greg Whalen served in Afghanistan in the U.S. Marine Corps. Courtesy | Greg Whalen

Two weeks after a bomb in Afghanistan killed a young Marine in 2021, his wife had a baby.

Marine veteran and Hillsdale College junior Greg Whalen, who was in Kabul at the time of the deadly attack, tells this gut-wrenching story in one of his new songs, “Nineteen,” which was written as a letter from the slain Marine to his wife.

As soon as this song and two others were released to the public, Whalen started to get national attention. On Sept. 28 in Corning, NY, Whalen will open a concert for Five for Fighting, a rock act known for hit songs such as “Superman” and “100 Years.” Three years ago, Five for Fighting released “Blood on My Hands,” a song about the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Whalen was in Kabul when an ISIS suicide bomber struck at a gate outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport, where Whalen and other Marines were assisting with the American military evacuation of Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. service members, including 11 Marines, were killed, along with more than 160 Afghans.

Afterward, Whalen was told that one of the Marines, whom he did not know, was 19 years old and his wife had a baby soon after he died. The tragedy of this Marine’s death amidst what he saw as America’s failure to keep its promise to the Afghan people impacted Whalen.

When Whalen returned to his hometown of Hillsdale, he wrote “Nineteen.”

“I know that it isn’t fair  / now that I’ll never be there to see you and our daughter grow,” sings Whalen. “You said you were proud of me / but I was just being naive / never thought I’d die at 19.”

Whalen learned later that none of the Marines who died were actually 19. They were all 20 or older, but he continued to use the age 19 for his song because he wanted the song to represent the men who died in general, not a particular person.

“I wanted it to be general enough to represent all, and so the song ‘Nineteen’ is very loosely based on those details I originally heard, and is a tribute to those 13 killed,” Whalen said.

Whalen, who is now 25, released this song in addition to two others, “Broken Eyes” and “Kabul 2021,” at the end of August in his EP, “American Deployed.” Each song is inspired by Whalen’s two weeks in Afghanistan as he asks America to remember the withdrawal in Kabul, and the men who were told to make it happen.

“Through these songs I want to speak to America,” Whalen said. “First of all, I want this event, and more importantly, the people involved, to be remembered and thought about and prayed for. Second of all, I want people to take responsibility. If America is supposed to be a citizen-elected government, then America has to take responsibility for its actions and has to take responsibility for what it does with its kids overseas.”

Son of Hillsdale Professor of English David Whalen and brother of Associate Professor of English Benedict Whalen, Greg graduated from Hillsdale Academy and enrolled at Hillsdale College in 2017, but dropped out of the college after two weeks.

“I was not feeling school and I did not want to force it, so I withdrew,” Whalen said.

He enlisted into the Marine Corps and started boot camp in the spring of 2018.

When he received orders to join the North Carolina-based 1st Battalion, 8th Marines infantry unit in 2020, he knew he would be deployed overseas the next year.

Whalen began his journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Kuwait and elsewhere in 2021, and he made sure to bring his guitar with him.

“Even on the ship, I was able to take my guitar,” Whalen said. “I had a lot of fun playing for the guys on my ship. Live music is really, really powerful and I was able to see that in those circumstances.”

Whalen started playing guitar his sophomore year of high school, following the example of older siblings who also took up music. The Whalen family has 11 children. But it was not until after he enlisted in the Marine Corps that he started writing original songs.

“I had an itch to write songs,” Whalen said. “I never thought of doing anything with it, it was just kind of a hobby on the side, but music ended up being a huge thing on deployment.”

As his unit traveled, Whalen built relationships and trained. In the last month of his deployment, on Aug. 12, Whalen’s unit received orders to head to Afghanistan to help the American withdrawal. They were told the deadline for withdrawal was Aug. 31.

When Whalen and his infantry unit arrived in Kabul, it was utter chaos.

“There were just tons and tons of people who were trying to get out of the country,” Whalen said. “The Taliban were already in the city of Kabul, and it was a weird situation. We were told not to attack them, which in the past 20 years, we were told the Taliban were the enemy, and now, they were helping work crowd control on the outside.”

Their job was to get people who had the proper paperwork into the airport, but the large crowds outside the gates made it impossible to let only credentialed people in. In the chaos, said Whalen, Americans were left behind.

Whalen said he spoke with servicemen who had spent years forming tight connections with the Afghan people.

“You’re talking about guys, combat guys, and the bond of life and death has been made with these Afghans who worked with them, and they are just seeing that we are betraying them,” Whalen said.

Whalen is seen kneeling in a famous photo of a baby being lifted up over an airport wall to American servicemen in Kabul.

“Sometimes, there were women and fathers trying to pass their kids up to us, because they were worried about them getting dropped and trampled and crushed in all the bodies,” Whalen said to The Collegian in 2021. “It was normal for a little bit. We eventually got the order to stop doing that because there were too many parentless children in the waiting area behind us.”

Whalen said his second song in the EP, “Broken Eyes,” was written in remembrance of the servicemen who made it home but wrestled with the aftermath.

“There is only one Marine I know of who has killed himself since we got back,” Whalen said. “He made it back, he made it out, but he struggled with things here. And then I know a lot of guys who, thanks be to God, they’re still living, but had a lot of difficulty dealing with things. ‘Broken Eyes’ is a tribute to everyone who did come back.”

His third song, “Kabul 2021,” steps back from personal stories and calls for America to take responsibility for its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“Don’t worry America sleep tight at night / ‘cause you can keep sending your kids to go fight / and to get blown to hell / as they clean up your mess / so you can just look at your watch and forget,” says the chorus of the song.

The last line of the chorus references when President Joe Biden checked his watch multiple times during a dignified transfer of the 13 U.S. soldiers who died in the bombing.

Whalen said the song was inspired by his mom, who encouraged him to write an “angry political song” about his deployment.

“This song has some specific details that I experienced, and many others did as well, saying ‘Hey, America, we need to look at what happened, take responsibility, remember it, and try to not do things in the same way,’” Whalen said.

Associate Professor of English Benedict Whalen, Greg’s older brother, said Greg has always had the ability to bear serious difficulties with courage and virtue.

“One of the things I have marveled at about my brother is his ability to maintain a stable good cheer while also processing his difficult experience through his music,” he said.  “Greg is a disciplined person, and he’s orderly, and I think you can see that in his approach to life and his approach to his music.”

Whalen returned home after his deployment, ended his active duty, and wrote these three songs. Soon after, he re-enrolled at Hillsdale in the spring of 2022 to study English.

At the time, Whalen never planned on releasing his songs publicly. Then two Hillsdale graduates, who happen to be musicians and producers, heard him perform at Rough Draft.

Luke Martin and David Johnson ’17 are in a music duo called Lost Mary. The folk musicians have released an album and a few singles, but opened up their own music production studio, Howling Music Company, in downtown Hillsdale this past spring.

“This guy is insanely talented,” Johnson said. “We exchanged contacts and we invited Greg over to the studio to record a couple of songs. After getting to know him better, Whalen came up with this three-song EP idea last spring.”

Martin and Johnson brought in other Hillsdale College musicians, including Adjunct Instructor of Music Dan Palmer to play guitar and graduate student Max Sumner to play fiddle.

Martin said he admired Whalen’s musical writing ability.

“When you’re in the studio doing vocal takes or going through different instruments, you really start listening to the lyrics, and they are heavy lyrics. They are heavy, amazing, and beautiful lyrics that really make you think about the experiences Whalen has had as well as everyone else out there,” Martin said.

In the coming months, Whalen will start recording an album containing non-military songs.

In November, he will play “Broken Eyes” at a memorial in Alabama for the soldier who is the song’s subject. Whalen has also been contacted by an active-duty filmmaker based in North Carolina to set up a concert and potentially a music video.

Whalen is now considering pursuing a career in music after graduation.

“We’ll see where this music takes me,” Whalen said.