Jessup talks to Mahomet-Seymour Junior High Students about LDRSHIP

BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com

When Mahomet-Seymour alum Joel Jessup told his story to Mahomet-Seymour Junior High students, it was a story that they heard before: the small boy who is transformed into a superhero.

The 1999 graduate was unsure of what he wanted to do in his life as a high school junior in 1998. 

That is until a friend, who had just finished basic training in the Army National Guard, came home. 

Jessup, then a 135-pound un-athletic teenager, did what he claims “every non-athletic kids does.”

“(I) jumped right into the infantry, the branch of service that runs around with a backpack, lives out of it all the time, walks everywhere they go.

“I had to adapt to that lifestyle pretty quickly,” he said.

His transformation to a superhero didn’t happen for five more years, though. 

In 2000, he was deployed to Kuwait in support of Operation Desert Spring, where he worked security

for patriot missile bases and military intelligence.

When the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, Jessup said everything changed. 

“The National Guard was responding to flood duty and tornadoes and natural disasters at home,” he said.

“We really took care of our community.”

Jessup’s unit was sent to Germany in early 2002 to beef up security for six months.

By 2004, he was offered an opportunity to work full-time for the National Guard and return to Central Illinois. 

Then in 2008, he was given another opportunity to work in human resources, but had to go to Afghanistan for a year.

His daughter was just six-months-old. 

Coming home again on Sept. 11, 2009, Jessup re-entered the States by pursuing a leadership role as an officer.

By 2012, Jessup was in command of a combat engineer company that had approximately 120 soldiers that worked directly for him. 

Twenty-years after his high school graduation, Jessup said that the lessons he learned at the very beginning of his service are what dictate many aspects of his life. He referred to the acronym LDRSHIP.

Loyalty: “We’re loyal to our friends, our family and all of our comrades; everyone we would with and work for.”

Duty: “We’ve got a duty to come home to our family. We’ve got a duty to stay true to everything that we believe in as a soldier, as a citizen and as a nation.”

Respect: “We respect each other. We respect our superiors. We respect our peers and subordinates. Just because you don’t agree with someone doesn’t mean that you have to disrespect them, be rude or be mean. You can disagree with someone and still move on with your life: be polite, be civil, work well together.”

Service: “Every single one of us that’s here in the room serving as a veteran was willing to demonstrate their selfless service when they signed on the line. Who wasn’t necessarily willing, but has demonstrated that as well, are all of our family members. They’ve all sacrificed for what we have done in support of our nation. 

Honor: We honor everything that we do in everything that we do. We honor the flag. We honor the nation we represent. It’s important for me that we all are upright, upstanding citizens when we’re out in public.”

Integrity: “Doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.” 

Personal Courage: “It takes a lot to do the things that we do, and at times, we’re all scared and we have to kind of buck up and move on with it to get the mission done. You’ll run into things in your life that are going to be hard and it’s going to be tough to make the right decision.” 

Jessup told the students that there may be times in the future where they will get knocked down and have to start over. But with a goal in mind, and the fortitude to push forward, “you can get anything done that you want to get done,” he said.