THOMASVILLE — Jasper Jeffers told members of Thomas County Central High School’s JROTC corps that he didn’t intend to make the Army a career.
A graduate of Virginia Tech, Jeffers considered just staying in four years, he said to the young cadets Thursday afternoon.
Twenty-two years after his initial planned end of service, Jeffers is still in uniform and still serving.
Brig. Gen. Jeffers is deputy commanding general of maneuver for the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, based about three hours east of Thomasville at Fort Stewart. He is stationed at Hunter Army Airfield, adjacent to Savannah.
“I had leaders to come to talk to me as a young person, that inspired me,” he said of his talk to the cadets. “Part of this is what I challenged them with — pay it forward. If I have an opportunity to try to inspire young people who have the potential and desire to go lead in the military or another part of American service, I’m going to take the time to do it.”
Jeffers has been awarded a Bronze Star with valor, a Bronze Star with two oak leaf clusters, a Legion of Merit and the Meritorious Service Medal, among his decorations.
He also has a military free fall parachutist badge, a master parachutist tab, an expert infantry badge, and a Combat Infantryman Badge, to go along with his Ranger tab.
One of his first assignments was with the 2/75 Ranger Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Seattle, Washington. He deployed numerous times to Iraq and Afghanistan as both a company commander and the air operations officer for the 2nd Rangers.
He also has served in multiple roles with the Army’s Special Operations Command, headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, going on multiple overseas and combat deployments.
He also has commanded a Stryker brigade combat team and deployed to Iraq and Syria for Operation Inherent Resolve as special operations command brigade commander.
Jeffers is at Hunter for the second time in his career. Following his first assignment to Fort Drum, New York, and the 10th Mountain Division, he was assigned to the 1/75 Ranger Battalion at Hunter.
He also recently returned from Europe, where 3rd ID troops had been sent as part of a training exercise.
Soldiers currently are not in combat anywhere across the globe. Jeffers has been on several combat deployments, and many of the Army’s senior officers and senior non-commissioned officers are veterans of combat deployments.
It’s their experiences that can be passed down to young soldiers.
“It is great to have experienced leaders. You can’t build experience,” Jeffers said. “You have to go and get it. But what I would say about our whole team, about today’s troops, to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, they’re just great people.”
It’s that team around him, Jeffers told the cadets, that has kept him in well past the four years he set as a goal.
“We just have great American kids who are signing up every day to serve their country in the United States Army and other parts of the military and it’s why I keep doing what I do,” he said. “There is not a day that goes by that I am not impressed by the quality and the focus and the desire of the soldier that walks into the Army today.”