Transcript:

00:00 Hello, this is Melissa, Hale-Spencer, the editor of the Altamont Enterprise, and I'm very excited today to welcome Jesse Sommer from the other side of the world. He's calling in from our rack and our readers are close. Readers will know that he wrote a letter to the editor that kind that just warms and editors heart and he told us how much it means to get home town news will. He's stationed in Iraq and he can listen to the local scene as he's gazing down on the sands of the southwest, Southwest Asia from a Black Hawk 1200 feet above ground level. So we thought, okay, we're going to talk to Jesse. So welcome Jesse.

00:51 Well, I really appreciate you having me on this like new expansion into the new media realm. as I said in that column that you referenced, What's cool about the Ultima and enterprise is you have gone from being just a newspaper to a global media company.

01:11 That's how I'm able to listen and  just what's going on in my hometown through all these different ways of reaching me out here in Iraq.

01:20 Yeah, and you asked ladies to write into our forum and did you know that Barbara Vink has, she is written, I hope it don't crash the website with my contribution to support the irresistibly ravishing Jesse Summers. So yeah, we're getting response. But tell us where exactly are you interact?

01:40 So I'm at a forward operating base, a FOB, called q west and um, it's in pretty smack dab central North Iraq. And q west was previously a, an army installation in the prior, uh, um, battle here after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. And this post was a. eventually when the Americans pulled out, it was turned over to the Iraqis but then eventually overrun by the Islamic state and then they were, uh, they were pushed out of us and the Americans have have reoccupied it. And so this is one of the fobs that I've been based at over the last nine months or so at this point. And I've, I've been all over the country, Baghdad and Mosel and I'm the areas behind the Kurdish defense line in what we might know is curtis, Stan Kirk Cook, etc. But this is where I spent most of the time because it's so centrally located and easy to get to all of the other placements of the third brigade team, 10th mountain division of assets. So our Brigade has a soldiers all over the country and qs does have a pretty centrally located place that allows me to hop around as they need to.

03:13 So what, what is your job there? What is it that you do on a daily basis?

03:20 So I'm the brigade attorney. My official title is a deputy brigade judge advocate and a lot of what I ended up doing is just kind of forced management, whIch is a bit of a euphemism for talking about military justice and punishing those who perhaps to get out of line as you can imagine. Um, you know, as is, is made clear in popular culture, we're governed by an additional set of rules and regulations codified in the uniform code of military justice. And the design of the uniform code of military justice, especially in a deployed environment, is to ensure good order and discipline among the units. So clutter, what I ended up doing is punishing soldiers when they quote unquote step out of line, um, but it's not nearly as, as perhaps a grease as you might think. So a lot of, you know, small infractions are dealt with, um, at what are called article 15 proceedings, which are, you know, where they might impose an extra duty or maybe they might take rank I'm a grade or two for soldiers that, that, um, you know, misbehave and in so doing a arguably make it a challenge for commanders to ensure that the attention is placed on the fight and the, you know, the very real consequence of being in an environment like this.

04:42 Um, as was reported last, last fall on October 1st, we, we, we were attacked by the enemy and lost a soldier who had deployed and only been in country out a month or so. And I think it's one of those things to keep in mind that, um, you know, we are here for a very specific purpose and that purpose is, I guess you could say, in contravention of the purpose of the adversary. And so at all times, if there is kind of a lack of the basic attitude, it's not just jeopardizing yourself taking your eyes off the very real dangers that exist here, but potentially endangering the lives of other people depending on what your, your job may be in, in a small way, every function that a soldier plays is in service, in the service of a larger mission. Um, and one of the things that's remarkable about being in the army and seeing how this big institution slowly and laboriously moves, um, the way it does, the way you move that many people and that much equipment that much weaponry is by ensuring that everyone is doing their part.

05:56 So I'm a, I guess I'm the bad guy in some sense that the commander needs to offer a little bit of coercive encouragement for someone to do their parT. They turned to me. Um, and so that's one small piece of it, perhaps the biggest of the small pieces. But then there's also advising on, you know, the mission specific. So a set of operational law type matters that relate to the law of administering warfare. So I will advise on, on, uh, you know, for example, strikes and legal strikes in the implementation of a Battle plan. I'm the type of stuff that I had originally thought was almost kind of exclusively whaT jags do. Um, you know, there's a good component or a good amount of, of whaT I do that is in service of making sure that the way we fight is done in accordance with international norMs and international law and the Geneva conventions and uh, just, uh, a variety of governing agreements as to the manner in which we put the best of our ability. Bring some Degree of civility to what is otherwise a really messy business.

07:12 Yeah, it's hard to imagine a business much messier than war. But two things as you were talking popped into my head to ask you, one is this idea of feeling like you have to be what you called the bad guy. Do you have colleagues that do the same thing you do, that you can relate to so that you're not out there alone being the bad guy? Because that sounds like a really tough role. I'm in the midSt of a stressful situation. Well,

07:40 I kind of, I mean, I should also point out, I say that with a certain bit of pride, there is an element of there, but for the grace of god, go, I like, I'm not suggesting that, that I am perfect in any way, shape or form, but I also think that what I do is, is important. So it's a soldier tries to, through an accomplice smuggle alcohol into, um, into the theater and they're caught because they get drunk on their way to guard duty. I have no problem bringing down the full effect of the law. um, what's, what normally happens is, you know, you will have a commander who identifies misconduct and it's the commander who actually has to be the punisher. All I do is advise and set those actions up for him to take action. Um, you know, I'm kind of like a, a, a conciliary units in a sense.

08:33 The law is really invested in the commander commander is, is at a company level or a battalion level and the brigade level, they're the ones who are all powerful. So really what I do is I'm the bad guy and basically explaining to a commander what the array of options are, and I can say that in the military justice context, but I can also see that in the operational law context, I have the know, I guess the fortune on some levels being a little bit removed from the decision to utilize lethal force against an enemy. Um, you know, those, those decisions or are withheld to a commander and the commander that, that, you know, past you go to sleep at night after, you know, doing, doing the dirty work. And so when it comes to prosecuting war, um, and, you know, uh, executing a battle plan, having a sense that they're doing it in accordance with the law is both a means of protecting them and maybe putting a little bit of a bandaid on a conscience, uh, because there's always the possibility of, of innocent lives lost when you use firepower.

09:42 Um, but then, you know, the element of a hearts and minds. You know, I, I, I think that on some level, on the bad guy is, you know, an enforcer, uh, when it comes to laying the law down, but laying the law down also in a way makes me an angel in the product context of when you prosecute war and you do it according to the law. You demonstrate to the people in whose home you're operating, in this case, the iraQis that you are governed by rules that it's not just a matter of, of, um, you know, might makes right and, and a cavalier attitude towards life. You know, there is an effort to minimize casualties. And obviously I'm spending a little bit of a party line and that's as obviously the most idealized version of, of what we do. But I can say that even if in practice there have been times where it falls short. That is the aspiration. That is the hope. And there's a lot of, um, you know, repercussions at all levels for soldiers who deviate from the effort to try to abide by some sense of a higher moral code in the way in which they behave and conduct themselves as soldiers.

10:52 Well, you mentioned the Iraqis in demonstrating to them that you're governed by rules. Do you have much interaction with Iraqis as, as you go about your work or is it, what's your relationship with? Certainly,

11:09 I certainly do to the extent that I have, um, uh, there are people who are in fact Americans but of iraqi descent and maybe work with us as translators or liquids. I in my, in, in my job, I had a very, um, a very eyeopening experience where I got to speak with iraqi judges and law enforcement personnel in the effort to stand up, um, prison space and ensuring that there was an opportunity. There was a, a means of holding those individuals who were convicted in a rocky courts for crimes perpetrated under the isis banner. Because if we hadn't worked towards trying to secure prison space, then the, this rocky justice system that is trying to reassert itself reestablish itself after the encouragement from isis, there wouldn't necessarily be on the other side of a conviction any type of, you know, unfortunately. So yeah, actual punishment.

12:13 So, so that has been very interesting watching the, the. I have a very beleaguered state, something that went through, you know, trauma after trauma over the last, you know, decade and a half, um, push themselves towards the reestablishment of the rule of law and holding members of isis, former members of isis accountable, uh, at law and not just at the end of a gun. And that has been, um, it's been interesting books. See the way the war is, is moving now. But I would just also point out being here makes you realize, certainly makes me realize how fortunate we are, but we americans with the American system of law because it, it, it only takes, it only takes a little bit of time in Iraq to realize how fragile it all is. And it, it, you know, we would like to think that our institutions are established, but um, you know, I'd, I'd refer you to the events in Syria or Iraq itself. It's not something that you can take for granted. The rule of law is, is very fragile. It depends on everyone believing in the rule of law and in, you know, um, the idea of some semblance of equal rights or due process and all of that stuff, uh, can be, it can very quickly disappeared. And once it does you, you open up a can of worms that I'm, as we've seen here is just very hard to, you know, to, to contain again.

13:53 Yes. I can't imagine being in the midst of that. You talked several times he used the word fragile or fragility. Do you have a sense of if the government can stand by itself when the americans leave or do you have a sense of the transition working or not working or can't you tell from the perspective that you know, the work that you do?

14:21 I, I Wish I could answer that. I, I think I probably have just as good a sense as I might if you read the accounts, I'm not, I'm not that close to the actual, like civil institutions. I guess I just know that it's in the furtherance of their establishment, those civil institutions that work here.

14:40 Do you have a sense of where Isis is now or how powerful it is now in the country?

14:49 Uh, yes. Um, and I, uh, I think, you know, perhaps due to the extent that the official, the official line is that isis has been defeated and I think obviously there are pockets of resistance, but I, um, you know, I imagine those types of questions are probably best handled by the people in pursuit of a final victory both in the american side and on the rocky side, which is to say I probably can't, can't speak to it. Um, uh, you know, in terms of authorities, but also frankly, in terms of my knowledge, you know, I see a small piece of a larger battle and you just have to hope that the left hand is talking to the right hand. Um, both in the army mission here, but also then in terms of um, the way we speak about the battle against isis on both sides of the ocean, right. With, you know, kind of the information that trickles back to you folks and what we get here.

15:51 Do you have a sense just from the people that you deal with, your comrades and arms, that morale is like among the American forces. Do you have a sense that know there's a certain strand of Americans that think we've been there long enough, come on home and there's another strand that things. My goodness, everything could crumble if you leave. I mean is this something that you talk about among yourselves or is like political talk just kind of remote and because you've got enough to do with your, your day to day tasks?

16:27 I think the point I would make instead is that something that's discussed and I think there are perspectives on both sides of the issue or, or maybe as many sides of an infinitely decided any side issues. There can be. Everyone has a perspective on it, but I would encourage your readers or perhaps more accurately your listeners to ask soldiers what they think. So one of the things it's more problematic is not what soldiers may think I'm among themselves, but just that, that those perspectives aren't being more broadly shared with the civilian counterparts. So I think if, if people are curious, you know, it's, it would go out of your way to try to track down a soldier and talk to them about it. Um, as opposed to me, sharon, kind of my thoughts or, or reporting on the thoughts of others.

17:23 You don't want to speak for a large group. But here let's talk about you then because that's what got me interested in having you on this podcast. I know the last time that we wrote about you, you were had a very different job in the military. You were working with a very new, at that time special victims council program. And just kinda back up and tell us maybe all the way back how, how you got involved in the military in the first place anD kind of your pathway through it. Up till now and where you'll be going next.

18:00 Well, we're all be going next. His seventh special forces group based at eglin air force base in Destin, Florida. So I'll be, um, I'll be moving there almost immediately upon my return from Iraq. But um, as far as how I ended up in the military, I think it was just kind of a, a, a, a sense of this is something, this is a body of knowledge and a cultural experience that I felt would be important to inform my efforts down the line to contribute to kind of just the overall sense of what it means to be an American. So I, I went to law school and business school. I did a joint jd mba program because I felt that those two bodies of knowledge, law and business, I felt that the intersection of that was kind of what influenced the decisions that drive our culture forward.

18:57 And one of the, the on a kind of a political level or a governmental level. one of the things that also seemed pretty clear to me is that the one irrefutable function of government defense, and I felt that if I was going to, you know, make policy when it came to, um, you know, contrIbuting an advocacy forum on, in politics that I, at the very least would want to know what it meant to be in the armed forces. That was my kind of way of, you know, spending some years giving back to the country before I went off on my own. Um, you know, my next chapter, whatever that would be. I just didn't anticipate that I would end up having such a blast

19:43 during the military.

19:49 Well, I was, uh, you know, I'm, I was a paratrooper, so I, I was first assigned to the 82nd airborne division. And so I, you know, I,

19:59 I immediately became, you know, I got to jump out of airplanes and then I pursued that life further and I became a jump master school. Jumping out of airplanes when you first did it. Yeah. It's freaking terrifying. Control.

20:19 Even like, I can't even believe. I can't even believe that that's the thing, but you know, obviously when you get up there eventually after you've jumped out several times it starts to make sense and you're like, well, yeah, I mean it's probably within within four days of flight of the miracle of flight. I imagine even one of the wright brothers is like, wouldn't it be cool to jump off this thing now? and it is, it is cool. and so that was a lot of fun and I became a jump master. And the cool thing about going to the seventh special forces group, um, it can be the battalion attorney for third battalion. There's, that'll all get no return to the airborne community. I've kind of given up the last couple of years. Just a remarkably. I'm sorry, say that again ma'am.

21:05 This group here with the 10th mountain troops that's got a history coming out of what world war two and fighting in the mountains in Italy. Is that the group here with now? 10th mountain?

21:15 Well, so the 10th mountain division based at fort drum actually has this, this one brigade that is stationed at fort polk in Louisiana. And that's the third brigade combat team, so I am in the 10th mountain division, which is like our hometown army team, but um, I'm actually stationed down south and uh, and I've, and so I, I joined the army based on the strength of my law degree as a judge advocate and went to the 82nd airborne division and then from there to the 10th mountain division and now I'll be going to seventh special forces group and uh, you know, eventually coming back home to, you know, to open the,

21:59 which is why I always,

22:00 you know, that's why it's all your paper remains my hometown paper because even though I've been moving around, I still somewhat have the sense that I, you know, that my permanent address is for eastville.

22:12 Okay. Going to return to the place where we returned to the place where we started and know it for the first time is tsl. He gets it. So that brings us back to the start of the interview. What has kept you, which is unusual for a young man, I think in your generation. What has kept you so connected? We did a story once on how you and your friends made a video wrap a he smell. I mean, what is it about your upbringing or voicemail that once you know that you want to come back and that you have this, this connection that you keep in touch even when you're over in Iraq, what is that?

22:53 Well, it might be on some level, kind of like a personal idiosyncrasy, you know, like I don't, I don't like I don't have pets because I don't like it when my pets die, you know, the pain of loss has always been more, more profound to me than like the joy of possession. But beyond just kind of the idea that I always feel for my childhood and the people that I grew up with, I can get kind of important to take stock of what it actually means to be a generational component. You referenced like a millennial or otherwise. We more and more identify by shared belief, you know, and we kind of have a balkanized a little bit. You know, you've got the right and the left and then within that subsets of ideas. But we don't necessarily identified by that shared heritage anymore. And the idea of what it means to be an american is so broad.

23:49 It's so broad that you know, only if that town level can you intimately relate to what it means to be yourself. You know, we used to live in these extended families or tribes and in that context you are forced to meet people who might have slight differences of opinions, but you'd get, you'd be compelled to learn from people that you gained family. And these are the people that I, you know, have a beer with at the memorial day parade, you know, back home. I've been all over this world now. And I feel as though I only know, you know, the people who know me, you mentioned at the very beginning of this, this, um, podcast, barbara, you know, she responded to my letter to the editor by, by making a post. But it was just remarkable as I read her posts and which he says is, I admired and enjoyed reading jesse back when he was in high school.

24:56 And that means that she knows me and has been as connected to me over the span of 20 years through the helder barker, which was a, you know, victory paper that, that the enterprise published. And, and so it's, it's actually interesting that there's still an audience that I cherish their, I know the people who will hear this podcast and if I don't know them personally, I at least know about them. You know, I know they've probably stopped by tasty treat for ice cream in the summer where they've caught a movie across gates. Are they, you've bar hopped it down large street, you know, I know they, they might get a kick out of your old man of the mountain columns. Um, I know that they competed on the same wrestling mats or uh, you know, they sat through a siblings, never run in chorus recital at the high school is about that identity, you know, like, I don't know what I am without, without my hometown, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm avoiding villager and a new scott and an urbanite.

25:57 BUt know before I'm an american or a new yorker, I'm a new scott and, and that, you know, it, it to be a voice villager means something a little different now that the diner has been torn down, I understand from the last week and now that is about to be a freaking gas station. Um, you know, when those, when those ideas move, I, I, I got it, like changes inevitable. But I also think that we become so untethered from what it is that, that, that keeps us, um, conjoined to the people that care about us. Whether it's, you know, my parents still live in the area or barbara fink and I, I should point out that I'm not trying to be overly rosy about it. You know, I know that the idea of being untethered to a place or you know, if he's got this regional or tribal association, um, can be problematic.

26:57 Uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm tracking, you know, if we didn't have holy lands, people cared a lot about, uh, maybe we'd be able to move past the endless wars we aren't even aware that are fighting and don't know why we're fighting them. I understand that having a rigid interference to one place and to not let it change, taken to the extreme to be a problem. But I also would say that like, I'm not just an anonymous commenter on a but newsfeed, you know, like I, I grew up in lawrenceville and I knew those people and I am a reflection of who they were and our influence on me and the shared experience that we call the new scotland outside this feisty little city and upstate New York. I, you know, I, I, if you tell me what street you come from and all the knee I can give you just off the top of my head a few attributes about you. And um, I, I would also get very quickly saying, I, I think I wrote to the enterprise about this once, but in that book about the village bennett sullivan has, is like haunting final line, which is, you know, there was a railroad town here once and it's name was boris eastville.

28:22 Those people that shared the streets of our village years ago, you know, they endure if we remember them, but they also, you know, they teach us who we are. And I, I just know that there really is no place like home. And I don't mean to be overly sentimental about it, but, but it's true. I've been all over the place and you know, there's just something about like having roots and even if it, even if it hurts watching a hometown slowly change, but at least being able to have a hometown. And um, a lot of people don't, you know, that is, that is an attitude that I think a lot of people don't share. But possibly to their detriment, you know, possibly to the, um, you know, the loss of like what it means to stand in the same place. And be able to remember those moments that you are connected to a younger self

29:29 and it's much more complex than I imagined you're at home. And then unlike the idea that you were saying the rigidity of place, it seems to me you have much more fluidity in your view because these days so many people connect just to people like themselves online and you're talking about a wider audience that knew your heart your whole life, but you had differences within them that you can appreciate because of having been associated with them for so long. It's a very nice concept.

30:05 Yeah, I mean most you know, the most diversity I'm aware of because it's at home because I take the time to learn those people. I wish I had the emotional and mental capacity to feel as close to some dude that I need at my next duty station as I do to barbara bank, [inaudible]. Alright guy. I hope. I hope that I had. I wish I could do that, but the fact is that he doesn't know me from 20 years ago and I don't know him from 20 years ago and I haven't invested the time and fully appreciating the complexity of who he is. That's what our hometown gives me a forum to do. I can see you as a multidimensional person and know you get those. Like those people who bemoan the fact that think was like I wrote an op ed once about how there's no true friends after 30 and I kind of know what they need that you're meeting people who are already. They already have. I had made that identity is justified and they've, you know, they're already carrying their, their, their wounds are already carrying their, their memories and they've got people who have a decades worth of inside jokes. If I leAve or if I'm not connected through the pages of the enterprise or otherwise my hometown, I'm surrendering all those inside jokes and those are the things that at least just for who I am or just have always been the most sustaining and affirming.

31:39 Well, on that note, positive note, we will say fare well, but we can't wait to welcome you when you get here, so thank you jesse summer.

31:51 Okay, and thank you. It's always lovely talking to you and I'm sure we'll cross paths soon again.

31:55 I hope so.