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Welcome home, Sgt. First Class Jimenez!

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Sgt. First Class Joey Manuel Jimenez, son of Julian and Rosemarie (Rosa) Jimenez of Wasco has served 20 years in the United States Army and will continue to serve five more years as a recruiter in West Chester Pennsylvania. He spent 15 years as a combat infantryman, although he is now a station commander of a large recruiting station.

Jimenez has served in different campaigns or combat zones: Operation Desert Storm, Iraq Operation Able Sentry, Skopje, Macedonia (part of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia) and Operation Joint Endeavor Joint Guard, Tuzla, Bosnia. He has been married 18 years to his wife, Bridget, and has two teenage children, Dominic, 17; and Jasmine, 15.

Jimenez is presently pursuing a college degree from Columbia Southern University and plans to retire from the Army in five years. His future goals are to work towards a second retirement from another government agency. He and his daughter visited family in Wasco and Bakersfield for a week in July to commemorate his return on July 12. 

Coincidentally, Jimenez left Wasco to serve in the U.S Army on July 12,1988 at the age of 17, and returned on the exact day — 20 years later — also on July 12, 2008.

He was welcomed at his brother Julian and sister-in-law Sophie Jimenez’s house in east Bakersfield. A barbecue was enjoyed by most of his family members. His sister, Bernice, and brother-in-law, Paul Loza came down from El Centro, Calif. His brother, Ruben; son Richard; and his Grandma Frances Jimenez, 88, came to the family gathering from Stockton, Calif. His sister, Becky, and her husband,  Fabian Jimenez also took part in the celebration.

Jimenez had promised his Grandmother Margarita Romo, who is 92 and lives in Wasco that he would visit her every day until he left to go back home — and that’s exactly what he did.