MASON, Ohio — Within weeks of celebrating his high school graduation, Jonathan Jergens was off to Army basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia.
“I wanted to serve, I wanted to do something,” Jergens said of his mindset following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
By October 2004, he found himself having gone through Airborne school and deployed to Iraq working in the field of communications.
“Setting up some communications for the base that we were at in Iraq,” Jergens said. “And then also, we did a lot of convoy support. So we would drive from kind of base to base to base in the southern part of Iraq, driving supplies and other things.”
Jergens said he grew up in a strong Catholic family, with deployments and life turning him into a self-proclaimed sporadic follower of the Catholic faith.
But there were times, he said, when he called on his faith to get him through stressful times.
For instance, they were stopped while out on a convoy due to a bridge being rigged with explosives. While they waited for the Explosive Ordinance Disposal team members to diffuse the situation, a tractor-trailer decided to disregard caution from the members of the U.S. Army and tried to cross the bridge, which subsequently exploded.
“It was like, kind of an eye-opening moment. You realize a few things ... there's people in this world who hate you. And I don't think a lot of people, you know, experienced that in that kind of raw way — that there's people who, who truly do hate you. And then the prospect of this is real, it's not a video game. You know, it's not, it's not a movie. And, you know, there's a possibility that you can get hurt or you could die,” Jergens said.
He would do three tours in Iraq and three in Afghanistan.
“The last eight years of my career, I served in a special operations unit. And so, I was responsible for all of the IT infrastructure at our base where we were at, and so I wasn't going out anymore,” Jergens said.
In his new role, Jergens ensured their communication systems worked during live operations to include drone video fed back to command.
“I loved my job. I loved everything about the army. It was such an incredible experience. But all throughout that time, there was this ... there was something else, you know, and as much as I tried to avoid it, the call for priesthood would keep coming back,” Jergens said. “It would keep entering my mind.”
He spent months pushing back against the thoughts of priesthood and decided the only way he was going to get past it was to go find out more about it.
“I went to a come and see weekend at the seminary, telling myself I was going to hate it,” Jergens said.
He said he even tried putting information in his application paperwork that would get him kicked out of the process or purposefully trying to sabotage the process.
“(I thought) these people were going to be just stupid, just everything I could think of that would be bad about it. And then I went, and I loved it,” he said.
Despite his attempts to sabotage everything, he was selected and soon found himself in seminary.
“I felt myself becoming more and more and more at peace and a peace that I never found in the military,” Jergens said. “As much as I loved the military and loved my job, there wasn't that peace. There wasn't that tranquility. There wasn't that that joy. And it took me five or six years in seminary to really come to grips with like, wow, that comes only from God, and I can't manufacture it.
“He's the one who has it. And he's the one who's leading me in this life. And this is truly what he's called me to be. And at that point, I could, in a sense, surrender and go, OK, you've made me for this, obviously, and I'm yours,” Jergens said.
Now serving the parishioners of St. Susanna Catholic Church, Father Jergens is focused on serving the flock and creating a space for military veterans like himself.
“It's called First Call and we meet the first Saturday of the month at 9 a.m. here at St. Susana. And it's basically an environment where veterans, whether you're young or old, can come together and have that kind of community, have that kind of time to get to know other people who've maybe been through some of the same things,” Jergens said.
He says parishioners and non-parishioners alike and offers a safe place to get that sense of camaraderie back in their lives.
“I think it's been an incredible, valuable thing for our parish, and still trying to get the word out about it for people who want to come and to be a part of that,” Jergens said.
Veterans wishing to attend the First Call gatherings can find out more by reaching out to the St. Susanna Catholic Church directly through their website.
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