David William Jacoby

U.S. Navy Reservist back home after Iraq deployment.

By Jeff Werner, BucksLocalNews.com


On Veterans Day, First Lt. David William Jacoby of the U.S. Naval Reserve will deliver the keynote address during ceremonies at Council Rock North High School in Newtown, Pa. The program begins at 9 a.m.

The Council Rock social studies teacher, who returned home in May after a one-year deployment to Iraq, will share his experiences, talk about the special camaraderie that is shared in the military service and personally thank all veterans for their service.

“I’ll be talking to some enormously impressive people so I’m humbled by that,” said Jacoby. “They’ve all served just like me and some of them have done extraordinary service, putting their lives on the line as a young kid, crawling in holes and getting shot at. It’s amazing the stories that I can’t even compare to,” he said.

Jacoby said veterans like his father, Robert Jacoby, are the reason he joined the military. “I joined so at least I could relate to them, to say, well, I did my duty as an American and hopefully it was enough. I hope it is.”

He also wanted to be part of the fight.

Jacoby, a Churchville native and Council Rock graduate, joined the U.S. Naval Reserves at the age of 35. “It was sort of a whimsical thing. I was driving past the recruiting office and I saw a sign that they were looking for adventurous people.

“I just wanted to do it,” he said, adding that his dad had also served in the Navy as a reservist at Willow Grove.

“He was localized to Korea early on and was on an aircraft carrier for a year. I heard stories about that. Both his brothers were in the service. I grew up in a very military and patriotic family,” he said.

Six months after he joined, terrorists attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001. After 9/11, he said, “suddenly it got serious. We knew that we were now at war and people were going to die. It really separated the men from the boys and solidified who we were.”

Over the next seven years, while teaching at Council Rock South High School, he served weekends, two-week and summer deployments to places like England, Italy and Hawaii. He also completed a six-month deployment in Naples, Italy, and earned a commission as a Navy Ensign.
But Jacoby was restless. “A lot of guys around me were being mobilized and a lot of guys were volunteering. It was time for me to step up,” he said. “I was having a lot of fun but I didn’t join to have fun. I joined to be part of the fight. I joined to be a warrior.”

Jacoby approached his superiors and asked to be put at the top of the list for mobilization. “I told them, ‘If you are about to mobilize a father or a new husband, I want you to replace that person with me.”

In 2009, the Navy Reservist took military leave from the classroom and mobilized to Iraq, this time as a member of the U.S. Army.

He arrived just as the combat mission was ending and troops were transitioning to a support and training role.

While in Iraq he worked at a military compound north of the capital city of Baghdad where he served as a liaison between the ground forces and the officers making the decisions.

“I felt very proud of the job I was doing. I felt very proud of the guys that I was supporting. And I felt an enormous amount of responsibility to get the accurate information to the decision makers on a daily basis,” he said.

The ground forces were charged primarily with training the Iraqis to protect their own people and provide security for the mass population and the new government of Iraq, said Jacoby.

Mortar and rocket attacks were daily occurrences at the compound. “Some of them were serious – they came over the fence and blew up fairly close to where we were. Some of them blew themselves up before they reached the fence line,” he said.

“For the most part, we remained unscathed by the ubiquitous attacks. Some of our comrades were not so fortunate, and during my time there, we did have several memorial ceremonies. Every one was solemn.

“I never saw so many tough guys with tears streaming down their cheeks, completely unashamed of their emotions as they stood like statues, proud to be honoring their fallen comrades, sad for the wives and kids left behind, resolved to fight on bravely and do their job well, do their duty to country, and continue to honor the memory of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

Jacoby said it was at one of the memorial services that he felt closer to his comrades then to anyone else in his life.

“It’s something extraordinary to be with these brave men and women. It’s just amazing,” he said.

As for Iraq’s future, Jacoby said he’s not worried. “We set them up for success,” he said. “The younger generation isn’t interested in the religious fanaticism. I think by the time they are our age it will be a different world in the Middle East.”

Not one to miss a beat, Jacoby is using his experiences in the military and in Iraq to teach his students about the Middle East. “We’ll be talking about not only what happened in Ancient Egypt, but also the struggles the people are going through today.”

The Iraqis, he said, are “truly nice people that care. But I can’t relate to them at all because they just think differently. Their goals are very different in life. We’re a very ambitious society. They are not. We don’t mesh that way, so we have to be careful.”

America, he said, is a very unique society in the world. “We can be very proud of ourselves and I am absolutely convinced that the people to thank are the ones in uniform. They made it happen. They made our society and our world a better place.”