LAYTON—Retired U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Zachary Jacobs still suffers from combat-related injuries he received while serving in Afghanistan. Most are not visible, yet those unseen injuries still impact his day-to-day life. 

Jacobs has migraines that incapacitate him for days or unexpected seizures that make it difficult for him to have a regular job.

In recognition of his service, Jacobs was honored Nov. 14 by receiving a payment-free vehicle by Military Warriors Support Foundation’s (MWSF) Transportation4Heroes program in collaboration with Wells Fargo and Young Kia in Layton. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 2006 to 2022.

“I spent all of my time in Afghanistan,” said Jacobs. “I was what was called a joint terminal attack controller or J-Tack. Our job was to coordinate airstrikes, typically for the Army but we could work with the Navy or the Marines.” 

Jacobs said they were there to ensure that when a bomb came off an aircraft or whatever the situation, they were helping to make sure it went into the right location without hurting friendly forces and minimizing collateral damage to homes or civilians. “The idea is the geometry of the attacks and making sure that everything goes well.”

It was because of that he was on the ground during his third tour when he got injured. “There was a gentleman, an Afghan police officer that was in front of me on patrol. He stepped on a pressure plate IED. I was knocked unconscious.”

Luckily that was sort of the extent of what happened, Jacobs said. “I mean I do suffer things after the fact.” 

“There’s a difference between injured veterans because you can easily see them,” his wife Sara. “There are also veterans from the outside who look like everything is fine but there were lots of firefights that he went through. Even the event alone still has repercussions on a daily basis.”

“The things Sara has to do for me, you know, take care of me in all these different ways,” said Jacobs. “The things my daughter has had to witness and had to go through because of those things. She’s 7 years old but when I’m down with a migraine or a seizure she knows I can’t come and play with her. I can’t do anything but she’s known that since she was little.”

Jacobs said the things they have to go through because of him and what he did is incredibly sad as well.

Because of his medical situation, Jacobs said he was laid off and just hasn’t been able to get well enough to get back into the workforce. “We’re looking at sort of a self employment situation and trying to understand what we could do with that.”

In accepting the car, Jacobs said he wanted to provide some context to why the MWSF organization and the car is so special not only to him and his family but to other veterans in the same or similar situation as he is. “There were a number of TBIs, traumatic brain injuries, that I suffered and there’s so much coming to light with veterans that were in these situations where bombs were dropped too close. IEDs went off way too close.”

Jacobs said he has memory issues. “I was trying to get to the bank one day with some amount of money that was in the hundreds and having no idea what I did with it. I couldn’t find it. I had no idea but I never made it to the bank. That’s a big deal because that’s one of many situations that have occurred that I can’t remember but have hurt us in innumerable ways.”

Jacobs said the new car will give him a little bit of additional freedom. “We have one car to get to school and back and get to our daughter’s activities and that kind of thing. So this kind of leads us to think ‘what can we do and what doors does this open?’ This is just one thing that allows me to come a little bit closer to being normal – you know being human – that otherwise I don’t have.”