[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 22, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1695-E1696]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HONORING JEREMY JACOBSEN

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LATHAM

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 22, 2010

  Mr. LATHAM. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize Jeremy Jacobsen, a 
U.S. Marine veteran from Boone, Iowa, and to express my appreciation 
for his dedication and commitment to his country.
  The Boone News Republican is currently running a series of articles 
that honors one Boone County veteran every Tuesday from Memorial Day to 
Veterans Day. Jeremy Jacobsen was recognized on Tuesday, September 21. 
Below is the article in its entirety.
  I commend Jeremy Jacobsen for his many years of loyalty and service 
to our great nation. It is an immense honor to represent him in the 
United States Congress, and I wish him all the best in his future 
endeavors.--

            [From the Boone News Republican, Sept. 21, 2010]

                                Service

                           (By Greg Eckstrom)

       The term is used frequently, most often when referring to 
     what our soldiers are doing overseas--they're serving. While 
     used frequently, however, many often don't devote a great 
     deal of thought to why the word is used. It's used to 
     describe our soldiers, without thought of the significance of 
     the word.
       Boone resident and Marine Corps veteran Jeremy Jacobsen, 
     however, embodies this term. He didn't join the military for 
     an enrollment bonus, for college money or because of family 
     tradition--in fact, his grandfather was his only direct 
     relative at the time that had joined the service. For 
     Jacobsen, it was something he wanted to do . . . he wanted to 
     make a difference. He wanted to serve.
       ``It was one of those things I always knew I wanted to 
     do,'' he said. ``It had nothing to do with family. I just . . 
     . I just knew. I always knew I was going to be in the 
     military, probably since I was about 12 years old. I knew 
     that was what I was going to do.''
       This decision did not come easily, however, for the Atkins, 
     Iowa kid as he fought tooth and nail to enlist early at age 
     17. His parents and relatives all urged him not to do it, but 
     they could see his determination, and finally his mother 
     signed off on it, allowing him to enlist.
       ``Me and my best friend in high school, we were pretty 
     politically active in high school, and with that came a deep 
     desire to do something for our country,'' he said. ``We both 
     loved our country. He would have enlisted with me, but he had 
     a heart murmur. So he couldn't. So I just kind of did it for 
     the both of us.''

[[Page E1696]]

       Jacobsen graduated high school in 2001, and the next day he 
     went to boot camp. He graduated from boot camp on Aug. 24, 
     2001--less than a month before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist 
     attack.
       ``Pretty much my Marine Corps career was the start of Sept. 
     11,'' he said. ``It was kind of a shock.''
       Many of the recruiters had told soldiers that were signing 
     up that they would likely never see war. Jacobsen was in the 
     field, training with other soldiers, when the attacks 
     happened, and with no outside communication available to 
     them, they heard only through their superiors. The news was 
     hardly believable.
       ``Our sergeants told us what had happened, and we thought 
     they were lying,'' he said. ``We thought it was just a way to 
     make us take our training more seriously. And then they 
     caught on to that, so they let us listen to President Bush's 
     address to the nation, and that's when we were pretty much 
     all in shock. It was just silence. From there, I think we 
     became more serious at that point, because we realized . . . 
     since we were newly enlisted, at some point in time, every 
     single one of us was going to see war.''
       Jacobsen became a field radio operator, joined the Waterloo 
     Unit--Charlie Battery 114. He spent four years with the unit 
     until being activated on June 12, 2005--a date that was 
     memorable, because it was his daughter's first birthday.
       After training in California, Jacobsen went to Iraq in 
     September of 2005. He was an Operations Non-commissioned 
     officer, with his job being to process Iraqi prisoners that 
     were brought in. They worked with officials in the country to 
     begin collecting information on prisoners--fingerprints, 
     names and evidence involved.
       Being in a position where he would have initial contact 
     with the prisoners, many thought Jacobsen had the power to 
     decide what happened. In their experience, they thought that 
     Jacobsen would be the one pondering their fate--a jarring 
     experience for the Marine.
       ``They thought that was it or I had the power to decide 
     their fate, and they'd fall to the ground crying,'' he said. 
     ``Pleading for their life or trying to kiss me. I had a lot 
     of empathy for them.''
       Working through an interpreter, Jacobsen helped process the 
     prisoners--many of whom were ``good guys,'' just in the wrong 
     place at the wrong time, and were immediately released after 
     processing. The prisoners, he said, were grateful to have the 
     soldiers there.
       ``In the Iraqi government, they didn't feel like they had 
     any future,'' Jacobsen said. ``They could be killed at any 
     time. If they were arrested, they were either imprisoned for 
     the rest of their life or killed. There was no system of 
     justice. And so, they were happy we were there.''
       Being in a position where the prisoners even had a thought 
     that he might take their lives shook Jacobsen to his core.
       ``I found myself early on brought to tears for them several 
     times,'' he said. ``Take everything out of the equation. Take 
     out way back when they said they had weapons of mass 
     destruction, take out the reason of maybe there's a national 
     interest in the future because they have oil, take out all 
     the political stuff. Just for humanitarian reasons. Just so 
     they can be treated like people . . . that was enough for me. 
     And for every Marine in my unit there with me, that was 
     enough. We felt like, everything aside, all the other 
     political stuff aside, what we were doing and what we were 
     seeing was good. We felt like we were doing good, and they 
     felt like we were doing good, so that justified us.''
       Jacobsen worked a shift that helped his time in Iraq fly 
     by. He would work 24 hours straight, sleep for 20 hours, eat 
     a meal and start the routine all over again. For this reason, 
     a normal ``day'' for Jacobsen was in reality 48 hours. While 
     this made time fly by, it also set him up for a jarring 
     adjustment when he returned to the United States. He spent 
     the remainder of his enlistment in the U.S. with a Des Moines 
     infantry unit, ending his military service career as an E-5 . 
     . . a sergeant.
       Now living in Boone with his wife and three kids, looking 
     back at his military career, Jacobsen misses many aspects of 
     it.
       ``The camaraderie that you have with that group of Marines 
     is probably the number one thing that I still miss to this 
     day,'' he said. ``You have that group of guys . . . we've 
     been together already that four years I've been at the unit, 
     we go through all this training together, we spend every 
     single day together and we know we've got each other's backs. 
     You know you can count on that other guy if something 
     happens. And there's something about that that connects 
     you.''
       Being back in the United States has been difficult for 
     Jacobsen, as it is for many veterans. The feeling of having 
     served overseas is nearly impossible to describe, he said. It 
     wasn't until he joined the local VFW that he found he wasn't 
     alone.
       ``It's weird . . . you never quite feel like you belong 
     here anymore,'' he said. ``You gain a different perspective, 
     and nobody around you shares that perspective. It's 
     different. Unless you've been there, you never quite 
     understand it. I just joined the VFW. Went to my first 
     meeting . . . and that was the first time I talked with 
     people who understood that.''
       When asked what advice he might give a young man or woman 
     looking to enlist, Jacobsen said the advice he would give 
     them would make him a bad recruiter, but it's one that he 
     considers necessary. It's based around a simple question: why 
     are you enlisting?
       ``I want to know if they're enlisting for college purposes, 
     or for national pride purposes. I'm a firm believer it's got 
     to be this one . . . it can't be the college purpose,'' he 
     said. ``If it's `I'm getting this benefit along with 
     something I want to do just because I have pride in my 
     country and I want to serve my country,' that's the perfect 
     reason to enlist and I would tell them you'd do good at it.''
       As for the Marines Corps, Jacobsen said anybody can do it, 
     despite your size or stature, as long as they have that pride 
     and passion.
        ``It doesn't matter if you're a small guy or an overweight 
     guy. They're going to fix you,'' he said. ``They're going to 
     fix that in boot camp and they're going to teach you how to 
     exercise or teach you how to eat properly. They're going to 
     give you those tools that you didn't have. The thing about 
     the military is they're the best run organization on the 
     planet. They're the oldest. The military has been around 
     since the dawn of time, and so they've got a lot of history 
     to go off of. Our country was founded by a war. Our first 
     organization, our first business, was the military. 
     Everything they do is for a reason. Everything's training in 
     the Marines Corps . . . I know it's the same way with every 
     branch.''
       Looking back on his career, the camaraderie he built with 
     his friends, the insight he gained in speaking with Iraqis, 
     and the work he did overseas, Jacobsen said if he could go 
     back and do it all over again, very little would change. In 
     fact, the only thing he would do differently, he said, is 
     push himself more, give just a little bit more, work just a 
     little bit harder, and make just a little bit more of a 
     difference.
       ``I worked as hard as I could over there, but you always 
     look back and think, `I could have done this much more in my 
     time in the service,' '' Jacobsen said. ``Because it does 
     end. I look back, and it's fond memories and you miss it, and 
     you just wish you would have tried your hardest in everything 
     you did.''
       That, better than Webster's could define it, is the 
     definition of ``service'' as it applies to the military. And 
     that is how it should be seen.

                          ____________________