PHOTO PROVIDED / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
AWARDS CEREMONY … Jenna Hooser (left) stands beside her father, Glen Hooser of Edon, during a U.S. Army awards ceremony.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
Jenna Hooser was a student at Edon High School on the day the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001. It also inspired her to join the United States Army.
The 38-year-old Edon resident had served 18 years in the military, where she was a surgical technologist and nurse assistant for most of her career.
“I don’t think at that age, I understood what was going on,” said Hooser in referring to 9/11. “But I knew everything was about to change overall.”
As Hooser got a little older and eventually graduated from high school, she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a nurse.
“I kind of wanted to go into the Army and help out,” said Hooser. “That was the best way to do it at that time.”
Hooser’s own ambition of going overseas and helping in the war in a medical aspect fueled her motivation to enter the U.S. Army when she was still in high school.
Following her graduation from Edon High School in 2005, Hooser began her military career, going through basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
“That was our basic gear up for combat experience,” said Hooser.
After successfully going through basic training, Hooser was sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for medical training.
“My training involved both operating room and basic lifesaving skills,” said Hooser. “It was hands-on training because it was a lot more different than I thought of regular medical training in the civilian sector. We were very trauma-oriented.”
She then transferred to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for the second part of her medical training. It involved the advanced surgical portion for her first assistant position.
Then it was westward to Fort Lewis, Washington, where Hooser joined the 47th Combat Support Hospital in 2007. She had spent one year at Fort Lewis preparing for her deployment overseas.
In 2008, she was sent overseas to Kuwait and then to Iraq with the 47th Combat Support Hospital.
On her first night after arriving in Iraq, a mass casualty had already taken place, and Hooser was thrown into trauma and surgery while helping to prepare U.S. Soldiers in their recovery and preparation process for them to come back home.
Hooser had worked out of three different air base sites in Tikrit, Mosul, and Al Asad in Iraq and was one of the surgical personnel who assisted in all of the trauma.
In addition, she also did mortuary affairs in Iraq, where she would go out and recover bodies, which became a traumatic experience for her.
“I was born and raised in Edon, Ohio, a very religious and small community,” said Hooser. “To get thrown into war and combat at 19 years old was life-altering. It was very traumatic with the training and everything leading up to deployment. I kind of understood my role in what I had to do to get soldiers home, the best I could. Seeing 19-year-olds, my age, not making it home was different.”
Hooser admitted that her military experience became emotional at times.
“We were in a combat hospital, so it looked like the television show, M*A*S*H*,” commented Hooser. “There would be times that I would go out behind the hospital, and I would break down and try to think about the fireflies back home.”
After her time in Iraq, Hooser then went to Vicenza, Italy, and then to Landstuhl, Germany, where she worked in trauma centers for two years.
In 2012, she returned to the United States, where she worked at a military hospital at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She specialized in plastic surgery and reconstruction for soldiers coming home with deformities.
“I felt extremely proud and definitely felt like my position had an impact,” said Hooser.
She was sent overseas again to South Korea for one year (2020), serving in a military hospital before being transferred to Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Hooser spent the final two years of her military career at Fort Campbell, where she became an air assault instructor.
“I taught air medical evacuations and sling load operations, kind of getting supplies in and personnel out in hostile environments,” she said.
She retired from the U.S. Army in 2022 with an honorable discharge and the rank of staff sergeant.
The daughter of Glen and Nancy Hooser of Edon, she admitted that it was her own stubbornness to join the U.S. Army despite having four older brothers in the family and being her dad’s fifth little boy.
Hooser is now serving as a veteran service officer for the Williams County Veterans Service office in Bryan. She also has a four-year-old son, Ripp, and they both reside in Edon.