Never leave a fallen comrade behind: The story of SFC Jarrett Jongema
In the midst of the all-too-frequent and tragic news of the high suicide rate among soldiers, particularly at Fort Hood, it’s good to meet an inspiring soldier like SFC Jarrett Jongema, who overcame the odds to survive after receiving almost-fatal injuries in Iraq.
No doubt some of the readers here are already familiar with SFC Jongema’s story, but I wasn’t until I happened to wander into the Social Media area of the exhibition hall at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) 2010 Annual Meeting and Exposition held last week at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington DC. As I was browsing around, a friendly master sergeant manning the booth struck up a conversation with me and invited me to join other viewers in a small portable theater with a big screen to watch a video called “The United States Army: Faces of Strength.”
One of the stories on the “Faces of Strength” video was that of SFC Jongema, wounded in Iraq a little over six years ago when a suicide car bomber carrying 500 pounds of explosives drove directly into the Humvee that he was in. Two soldiers were killed and nine, including Jongema, were injured. According to the story on the aforementioned video, the blast threw Jongema 50 yards, impaling him on a wire fence hanging over the freeway, where he hung, unconscious, and received intense enemy gunfire. He was believed to be dead…but did survive. He was resuscitated by medics four times before they could begin to work on his injuries. He gradually began to heal, but had also lost much of his memory, including that of his mother, his wife, and his child, which he had to recover.
While he was laid up with injuries, SFC Jongema learned that his young son had cancer. With that news, he was determined to fully recover so he could help his child. He not only recovered, but also made the choice to remain in the Army instead of taking medical retirement. He now serves as a manager at Human Resources Command, helping young soldiers, and speaks for the Army’s Wounded Warrior Program – something which didn’t exist six years ago when he was recovering.
After watching this inspiring video, which moved me nearly to tears, I chatted with the friendly master sergeant there who was manning the booth. A good twenty minutes into our impromptu conversation, up sauntered a young, handsome, and smiling Sergeant First Class. I blinked for just a moment, and then I realized…….it was SFC Jarrett Jongema! He had just come over from the little table in the corner of the exhibit hall – the brightest spot of all in the whole dazzling display of the military industrial complex – which was the Wounded Warrior Transition program table.
Of course, I got SFC Jongema’s autograph and a picture of us together. In the background, you can see the poster of him that was on the wall behind us.
I told SFC Jongema there’s a blog I read that ought to run a post on his story. Hmm…maybe I’ll even write it myself. He just smiled and softly said, “Too easy…”
Category: Politics
In the midst of the all-too-frequent and tragic news of the high suicide rate among soldiers, particularly at Fort Hood,
==========
What “high suicide rate among soldiers”? Last I checked, the suicide rate among military members was no higher than the suicide rate among young adults of the same age in the general population.
He now serves as a manager at Human Resources Command, helping young soldiers, and speaks for the Army’s Wounded Warrior Program – something which didn’t exist six years ago when he was recovering.
==========
Another amazing young man in our military. Simply amazing how they can endure so much, yet work so hard to heal and then help others.
He’s one of the Air Defense Branch managers. That we have such a man working for us is awesome. I hope he continues his work.
Very cool, Debra! Thanks for bringing us this story of your meeting and the background of a warrior.
Out-freaking-standing! Thanks for the story Debra and thanks for your inspiration and service SFC Jongema!
Excellent, very well done Debra! Welcome aboard, SFC Jongema! Hooah!
An amazing story about an amazing man. THIS is an example of why we can be proud of our military.
What a stud, a true fighter.
What can you say? I’m humbled by men like Jongema, we need more like him.
Here’s a rather extensive article comparing civilian to military rates, Michael. In every report you’ll find that civilian suicide casualty rates are higher, though that doesn’t make it any better.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1416/is_2_31/ai_n31587663/
And SFC Jongema definitely epitomizes the warrior. Outstanding!
In every report you’ll find that civilian suicide casualty rates are higher, though that doesn’t make it any better.
==========
Agreed. Suicide is never good. I know of this first hand.
Where I take issue is the description of “the all-too-frequent and tragic news of the high suicide rate among soldiers, particularly at Fort Hood”.
High rate compared to what? Is it high now among soldiers compared to those in the past? Is it high compared to the general population (obviously, no, as I have read in the past and you have shown here)?
The description makes it sound as if there is a problem with higher than normal suicide rates among soldiers, especially at Fort Hood… as if we’re hearing all over the news of soldiers committing suicide all across the nation, as if there is some sort of epidemic. As far as I know, that’s not the case.
Now, of course, any suicide is tragic. And considering this is a military blog read mainly by those in the military community, of course most are going to find suicides among those in the military community to be even more tragic. I just don’t like when issues are incorrectly characterized, whether they are wrongly hyped or wrongly downgraded, especially when it seemed pretty superfluous to the point of this post and unnecessary.
Thank you for your comments. I’m guessing by Michael’s complaints that we not only have very different life experiences, but also that the content of our email boxes is quite different.
My intent was to draw attention to and highlight SFC Jongema’s strength and resilience, not to make a controversial political statement about suicide.
I would also like to mention – while my reference was only with regard to soldiers, also critically important for total Army strength are the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are no longer in uniform.
I’m not a statistician; however, I do think it’s clear that the Army is concerned about suicide, which has recently been occurring at a higher rate than in the past. I would expect suicide rates among soldiers to be considerably lower than civilian counterparts in the first place, so I’m not sure it’s meaningful to compare suicide rates to that of civilians. The comparison should be with the Army’s own documented suicide rates, which were not previously so high.
I note that the link posted by ROS is a year and a half old. According to a story aired in July 2010 (see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128852976 ), the Army is now reporting that “The rates of suicide among soldiers now eclipse the rates of suicide in the civilian world…”
Your points are well-taken and I would be happy to rewrite my first sentence (which, in retrospect, is not even grammatically correct) if I could get my point across in one sentence without spending hours of research on it first to make sure I would have it right the second time – not that I mind doing hours of research, but I don’t have that luxury of time right now.
SFC Jongema exemplifies through his his life the positive values of strength and resilience. I think expanding the understanding of how a person gets to that path is critical for the mental and spiritual fitness not only of individual soldiers and veterans, but ultimately for the total strength of the whole Army family.
My intent was to draw attention to and highlight SFC Jongema’s strength and resilience, not to make a controversial political statement about suicide.
And it was a good post, but you did start with a questionable suicide statement…
Good piece over all Deb, don’t sweat it. 🙂
Thanks.