In Germany for fall of the ‘Wall’

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BROOKINGS – Make military service a career – 20 years or more – and odds are good that you’ll witness, maybe even up close, a piece of American or world history, maybe both, in the making. 

So it was for retired Army Lt. Col. Dawn E. Jones on Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall began to come down.

“I was on active duty in Germany that day, serving as a captain and commanding 250 Military Police soldiers,” Jones said. “That day also happened to be my 31st birthday.” It turned into an interesting day for a South Dakota farm girl.

Jones grew up on a farm near Erwin and graduated from Lake Preston High School in 1977. She attended Yankton College, graduating in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. And having completed four years of Army ROTC requirements, she was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Military Police Corps. However, she admits she hadn’t planned on military service.

“Even though my dad was a Korean (War) era veteran, the military wasn’t really on my radar screen,” Jones said. But after a sales pitch from a friend in the ROTC department, she took a field trip to the Black Hills where she rode in helicopters “and ran around in the piney woods.” Following that weekend, she was “kind of hooked.”

“I was pretty fit and I could hold my own,” Jones said, adding that she had been a high school and college athlete. She again held her own when, following attendance at the MP Officer Basic Course, she completed airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia. She would make a total of 37 parachute jumps over the course of her Army career.

Captain and chief of police

Following several stateside assignments, including the Military Police Officer Advanced Course, Jones was posted to West Germany from 1986 to 1991. As a captain, she was for three years provost marshal (“Basically provost marshal is Army for chief of police,” she explained.) for the Darmstadt Military Community, south of Frankfurt, an American enclave of about 40,000 Americans – mostly military personnel and their families, with some civilian residents. She led a staff of about 50 American soldiers and about 25 Germans who provided liaison and communication with the German “polezai.”

“When I got there, it was West Germany and East Germany,” Jones explained. “It was the height of the Cold War. There were 300,000 military in the American Sector. And now there’s maybe 30,000 in all of Germany.”

Following three years at Darmstadt, Jones served for two years at Stuttgart: first as the plans officer for a Military Police battalion, before taking command of the 300th Military Police Company. She was with the latter on her 31st birthday, when the Wall began to come down.

“This is amazing. This is what we wanted to happen,” she said. “This is what we’re here serving for.” But for her personally, “it was hard to enter completely into that joy” surrounding the event.

“Is this real? You just weren’t sure about what was going to happen,” she explained. She would later see the Wall near Brandenburg up close and personal when as a chaperone, she participated in a Scouting-Explorer jamboree in Berlin maybe six months after the Wall came down.

“When I was there, there was still a whole bunch of the Wall. The Wall going around, it was 100 miles,” Jones said. Smiling, she added, “Entrepreneurs were outside the Wall with a hammer and chisel: ‘Give me two bucks, and you can have this chunk (of the Wall).’”

Recalled to active duty

In 1991, following her duty in Germany, Jones attended a year-long program of study for a Master of Science degree in international relations, offered by Troy State University at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Following that she served in a psychological battalion until transferring to the Army Reserve in 1993.

She spent the remainder of her military service in psychological operations, for which she had a secondary MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), at MacDill Air Force (Tampa, Florida) in psychological operations or “psyops,” which are under the umbrella of United States Special Operations Command.

Following 9/11, Jones was recalled to active duty for two years. She retired in June 2009 with 26 total years of service.

“Serving was an honor and a privilege,” she said, summing up those two-decades-plus of service. “I can’t imagine my life without having served in the military.

“The people you meet, that cross section of Americans that broadens your understanding and appreciation of your fellow Americans.” Add to that “the international experience of being an expatriate – five years abroad.” Jones has been a member of the Erwin American Legion Post No. 241 for 25 years.

Ordained minister

When Jones went into the Army Reserve in 1993, she embarked on a second career, began seminary studies and became an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. It took her six years to complete the three-year course of study.

Her now spouse, Phyllis J. Naffziger, also a retired Army lieutenant colonel, was still on active duty. 

“We were moving where she was assigned,” Jones explained. “I was going to seminary wherever we were. We were living in Texas and we were living in Georgia, then we ended up in Illinois. I finished up at Chicago Theological Seminary in 2000. Then I went through the church process and got ordained in 2008.” She had done four years campus ministry at Northern Illinois University.

They moved to Brookings in 2008 to be near her parents. Her father, who had also served in Stuttgart from 1950 to 1952, died shortly thereafter. The couple recently built a house in Volga and are in the process of moving in. Jones’ mother will live with them.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.