Jaspen ‘Jas’ Boothe became a single mother after college and became an Army officer to show her son that anything is possible. After her service was faced with unimaginable barriers she continued to bring that message to women everywhere.
The Chicago native went to college on a basketball scholarship, hoping to get into television broadcasting. After facing rejection as a taller Woman of Color, she decided to pursue the toughest career field there was for a woman.
“I did it to prove to my son that not only as a woman can you do anything you want to do but as a person. No matter what you set your mind to, you could be successful regardless of what titles and stereotypes society has placed on you,” Boothe explained. “So I thought about what would be the most challenging profession and that’s when I decided to join the Army.”
In October 2000, she raised her right hand and became a soldier. A year later, she was in training in Las Vegas on 9/11.
“I’m literally putting on one shoe and I just turn on a TV really quickly to just have background noise as I’m getting ready for PT. By the time I was putting on my second shoe, I saw the second tower get hit. My first thought was, ‘Man, that’s horrible. Where is that happening?’ Because in my mind it was not clicking that this is happening on U.S. soil. When someone said a plane just hit the second tower of the World Trade Center, I knew my life and the life of my son were going to be forever changed,” Boothe recalled.
As she stood there in formation while instructors told the soldiers what had happened, Boothe knew they’d soon be at war. By 2005, her unit was training for a deployment to Iraq.
“I didn’t feel well at the time but I will tell you, like early on throughout military history women didn’t really get leadership positions, especially leadership positions that were high visibility,” Boothe shared. “Mine was such because I was going to be leading troops into a combat zone, but I didn’t make it to Iraq due to two significant events. The first one was Hurricane Katrina.”
Boothe and her son had made their home in New Orleans, and the storm took everything.
“My son wasn’t there at the time so I knew he was safe. I slowly realized that I had just lost everything that we owned. I still don’t have baby pictures of my adult son today,” she said. “I lost everything to the hurricane in August and I received a head, neck, and throat cancer diagnosis 30 days later.”
Though she hadn’t felt well for a while, she was continuously discouraged from going to medical by leadership and belittled for voicing weakness. The two-week pause in operations for those impacted by Hurricane Katrina allowed her the time to go see a doctor.
“From there I got sent down to Brooke Army Medical Center. I was there for six months, had two surgeries, 30 cycles of radiation, and luckily, my cancer got put into remission,” Boothe shared. “Once I finished my treatment, I didn’t have a home or a job to go back to. My unit was forward deployed. I was obviously not fit for battle, and so I was basically discharged into the street.”
When she went to the VA for help in 2006, she was told they weren’t prepared for female veterans and didn’t have any supportive housing for her.
“There are also women who were there who would come back wounded, ill, and injured due to the Iraq War. One of my best friends, Marissa, is a double female amputee due to her service in a combat zone,” Boothe said. “There are women who are buried in national cemeteries in Arlington and other national cemeteries throughout the country. So to be turned away from the one organization that was basically erected to support you was a huge slap in the face, and the only reason I was turned away was because of my gender.”
Homeless, Boothe was able to sleep on her aunt’s couch and provide a roof over her son’s head, staying in the Army Reserve. She fought to find a job and accepted a position with the Army National Guard in Missouri.
“I was able to get back on my feet and decided I would build a refuge and an organization to elevate the voices of women veterans. It would be my next mission,” she added.
Every morning, Boothe’s son would come greet her before he left for school and encourage her by telling her today would be better. She credits him with the strength to get off the couch and fight.
“Prior to my separation, I had the opportunity to go to Kosovo on a peacekeeping mission. I had to fight to be allowed to go, but eventually they kept my orders,” Boothe said.
It was there she met her husband, a Marine who was part of force protection. Though he was initially short with her and, as she described, “rude,” the two struck up a friendship on her birthday. By the time their deployment was over, they were a couple and married not long after. In 2010, she founded Final Salute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing housing to homeless veterans.
“Your journey is unique but you are not alone in that journey. There are so many of us who feel we don’t have a voice or that no one is listening to us because of where we come from or because we happen to serve and be women,” Boothe shared. “It’s important for people to continue to tell their story so people can understand exactly what we go through. Being silent only hurts us, and it’s only for us to be able to speak our truth that things will change. Veterans—we’re still sisters and brothers and we need to support each other.”
The oldest son who watched his mom give 17 years to the Army and persevered through so much raised his own right hand to enlist in the Air Force. Boothe jokes that she and her husband’s 14-year-old is a “trainee” for the military and will join before long.
From that couch, she went on to receive several awards, spoke all over the country, and even found herself on Oprah’s couch. In 2017, she was featured in the documentary Served Like a Girl.
“Every honor and accolade that I get, I always make sure to mention the women who paved the way for me to be able to serve and to be able to do what I do, because if not, I would not be the person or where I am today,” Boothe shared.