This flag has been everywhere.
For nearly three decades, through countless deployments, across almost every continent, in battlefields and in peace, in conflict and in calm. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, you name it.
By now, it’s been touched by hundreds if not thousands, probably signed by nearly as many, furled and unfurled, tucked away neatly and waved proudly.
It has gone everywhere Terrence Jackson has gone for almost 30 years. And that’s a lot of places.
He picked it up at a military base in Germany in 1996, and it stayed with him through the remainder of his military career, which started just out of Santa Rita High School in Tucson at the tender age of 17, and into his second career as a government contractor.
And it visits Tucson once a year with Jackson, a quick trip home that serves as a brief respite, a chance to see family and a reunion with friends at El Tour de Tucson.
He’s ridden in El Tour every ride since 2008, along with his friend and fellow former Santa Rita classmate, Michael Schwartz. They’ll be joined this year by Jackson’s neighbor up in Phoenix, Jon Friend, as well as a pair of army buddies, Adam Pasquarella and Jon Holloway.
And they’ll be joined by the flag, which carries the names of countless soldiers with whom Jackson has served.
Terrence Jackson has raced in El Tour de Tucson since 2008.
Sitting in the giant C-17 military transport airplane, on his way back to Arizona in 2008 for his first El Tour, Jackson was not alone.
Returning stateside were the bodies of fellow service members killed in Afghanistan. Jackson stared at the caskets as he bobbed in turbulence.
At some point on that flight, he opened his backpack and saw the flag. He pulled it out and held it tight.
“You’re in that plane, and you feel like you should be celebrating going home for the holidays, but you’re sitting there with caskets of people who aren’t going home,” he said. “So I grabbed the flag and I just reminded myself, ‘You’re not in that casket, go home, reset your clock and ride for them.’”
Jackson remembers disembarking from the plane and asking the flight crew to sign the flag.
Then he re-folded it securely and tucked it away for his ride, remembering with every pedal what — and whom — he was doing it for.
“I think about my brothers and sisters,” he said. “People down range. The people back home. People I’ve served with. Coming home, it’s an emotional thing for me. When you get to be back on American soil, if you’ve spent any time out of country, it’s a lot. There’s always a time I take a knee in the airport. It’s the proverbial kiss the ground moment. You can let your hair down. You’re no longer in the suck.”
Even after his military retirement, serving as flight instructor for various special operations aviation regiments, Jackson continues to travel around the world as an intelligence expert.
He still makes it a point to return home for El Tour every year, though, including this year’s El Tour on Saturday, Nov. 23, that kicks off at 7 a.m.
Ever since his very first El Tour 15 years ago, it’s served a familiar and important role in his life
“It felt like a culture,” he said. “It’s just kind of home. It’s about friends, it’s about family. I have a buddy, Mike Schwartz, we grew up together, and it’s the one time we get a year. We meet up, I catch up with him, catch up with his family. It has always been that way from the first time we did it. I really enjoyed it. It was never about the ride, it was about coming home and being on a bike with my friend.
“I don’t get to really ride a bike in the rest of the world.”
Terrence Jackson during a bike race. Jackson has raced in El Tour de Tucson since 2008.
Jackson never went to college, so he likes to rep all three of Arizona’s major college programs: UA, ASU and NAU.
When he’s not in his professional attire, he’s usually wearing a shirt or hat of one of those schools.
It’s his way of taking a piece of Arizona with him all over the world.
And in turn, he brings the signatures of his fellow servicemen back from bases across the globe. That’s his way of carrying his travels with him.
Sometimes they are simple scribbles. Sometimes they serve as motivation.
“Go home, give them hell, don’t come back if you don’t take first, die before quitting,” Jackson said with a laugh. “There’s a lot of blessings and camaraderie that a lot of people send you off with. And then, when you come back, and you’re able to attach the flag and raise it, and everyone is out there, and you’re unified under the red, white and blue, it’s amazing. Then the next day, you raise someone else’s flag, and it’s another day.”
That’s Jackson’s favorite part.
Getting to see the flag fly, high above the foreign soil.
“It is that heavy,” Jackson said, and he’s not talking about the physical load. “It’s just a moment of reprieve from the current state of affairs. Whether you’re under fire or you’re having pressure and you’re just standing together. It’s like, I’m in the suck, I’m forced to be here, or I volunteered to be here, but you can’t come home. Things are ramping up and you know it’s going to be dangerous. When they sign it, it’s like, go with my blessing.”
