The Baggett Family

U.S. Army Capt. Jeremy Baggett began his military career as a member of the Texas Army National Guard in 1994. In June 1996, he enlisted in the active Army and was assigned to a combat team in Vicenza, Italy, where he served as a platoon radiotelephone operator until he was selected to serve in the battalion reconnaissance platoon.

In the reconnaissance platoon, Baggett was assigned as a senior scout and sniper. He served in this position until he completed his term of service in June 1999. Following the end of his service, Baggett became a student at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. However, following the attacks on September 11, 2001, Baggett withdrew from college and reenlisted in the Army, where he was immediately reassigned to the reconnaissance platoon in Vicenza.

While there, Baggett served as a sniper team leader and reconnaissance team leader. He then deployed to Kosovo in 2002 and conducted anti-smuggling operations in support of the United Nation’s mission in the region. During a deployment to Iraq in 2003, a roadside bomb wounded Baggett after he was picked up from a dismounted reconnaissance mission. As a result of the explosion, he experienced shrapnel wounds to his right arm and leg as well as compression injuries to his neck, back and upper extremities. Baggett remained in a field hospital in Kirkuk, Iraq, for a month until he was medically evacuated back to Vicenza.

It wasn’t until 2006 that Baggett was sent back to Iraq to work with the asymmetric warfare group and the department of the Army. In the summer of 2009, Baggett was assigned to the United States Army Student Detachment in order to complete his bachelor’s degree in history from Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia.

 While in the Army, Baggett received countless awards including a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star with Valor Device, The Order of Saint Maurice, five Army Commendation Medals, and seven Army Achievement Medals. As a result of his service, Baggett suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine, migraine headaches, right and left ulnar nerve compression, right and left peroneal nerve compression and bilateral plantar fasciitis, and right and left patellofemoral syndrome.