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Jake the lunch lady
goes to war
Andy Rieger, Norman Transcript
February 2004 Column Winner
The hugs were a little longer, the handshakes more firm and the tears a little more frequent Friday at Gingerbread Nursery School. "Jake the lunch lady" as he is known to the school’s 180 elves, giants, scots and kindies, is going away for a year and it was time to say goodbye.
"I’m going to really miss you guys," he tells a group of 3-year-olds, circling him like they would a rock star and giving him a group hug. "Now who’s going to make our lunch?" one asks.
Some of the kids know Lance Cpl. Jacob Dragoo is a soldier but only their parents seem to understand the gravity of the goodbyes. In between classes at OU, Dragoo helps serve lunch to the little ones. He’s done it for years and has gotten to know the pre-schoolers by name. He leaves Monday, joining the First Marine Expeditionary Force out in San Diego, before heading to Iraq, most likely this month.
A Marine reservist and OU senior, Dragoo volunteered to go to Iraq. He is highly motivated, well trained, believes in the mission and is not at all scared.
"I probably should be scared but I’m not," he said. "they asked for volunteers and they picked the four of us."
Dragoo, the son of the pre-school’s owner Skye Diers and Bill Dragoo, graduated from Norman North High School in 1999 and headed to OU. He joined a fraternity, got initiated and then decided the Marine Corps better fit his life’s direction. He wants to someday be an officer and may make a career out of it.
Many of the children handing out the hugs Friday made him cards. There was a box of chocolate candy. Lots of heart drawings. One girl cried because she couldn’t give him a Valentine’s card. Dragoo will take some of the mementos with him to Iraq but don’t expect them to hang in his tent. The ribbing would be unending.
One parent, Mary Brown Boren, said Big Jake is the perfect "lunch lady" and friend of her son, Harrison. "Our nation has thousands of lunch ladies, but Jake is certainly America’s finest," she wrote, adding he can be firm when needed. "He lovingly exerts Marine lie control over the lunchroom crowd. At times a soft look and word cheers up timidity and hurt feelings."
I think this is much harder on the folks that I leave behind," he said. "For me, this is the grand youthful adventure. I love the Spartan lifestyle. I love camping and off-roading and lots of big toys."
Gallows humor is often how the military copes. The seriousness of the mission doesn’t escape him. "I want to see, really on the ground, how we’re helping the country, building schools and giving freedom to the people for the first time in a long time."
His parents understandably have mixed feelings. They’re proud but he’s still headed into harm’s way.
"You can’t ask me how I feel. I’m his mother," says Skye. "He really believes in this. I’m up and down about it."
His father, Bill, took a poetic turn in his fatherly advice. His writing ends like this:
"…I’ll tell him that we all must live each day to be our best
That like a thief it all could end and our time will come to rest,
So stand up tall and be the man who walks with God and why?
Son today is all we really have for tomorrow we may die…
May God go with you Son and may he bring you safely home."
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