She was the little girl who called herself a late bloomer, the teenager with mismatched socks and ever-changing hair. But Elizabeth “Liz” Jacobson grew into something extraordinary — a 21-year-old Airman who gave everything for her country on a dusty Iraqi road.
Her journey began in Orlando, Florida, on March 26, 1984. Liz was raised in Madera Ranchos, California, a tiny unincorporated community just north of Fresno, after her parents David and Marianne divorced when she and her sister Jenna were young.
Her father once told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that Liz repeated kindergarten because of a learning disability. At the time, she reassured him: “Daddy, I’m just a late bloomer.”
David Jacobson remembered his daughter’s quirks with love — she played soccer but sometimes kicked the ball toward the wrong team, rocked a funky fashion sense with mismatched knee-high socks, and was constantly reshaping and recoloring her hair.
During high school, Liz moved to Florida to live with her grandmother, Sondra Millman-Cosimano, in Riviera Beach. She spent a few months at Palm Beach Gardens High School before transferring to Gold Coast High School in West Palm Beach.
Eventually, she returned to California, where she earned her high school diploma through an adult education program, joined the Fresno Playhouse, and dabbled in poetry. But something was pulling her toward a different path.
Liz moved back to Riviera Beach hoping to build a career in law enforcement. Then the September 11, 2001 attacks changed everything. At the suggestion of her grandfather, Cos Cosimano, she enlisted in the U.
S. Air Force on December 9, 2003.
After completing Security Forces technical school, she was assigned to the 17th Security Forces Squadron at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, where her duties included patrols and long shifts at the front gate.
At the time, Liz had guardianship of her 16-year-old sister, Gabrielle — an arrangement that could have kept her from deploying. But she was determined to serve in Iraq, and she made it happen.
On June 15, 2005, Airman First Class Jacobson left Goodfellow for pre-deployment training. She joined the 586th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron, part of the 386th Expeditionary Mission Support Group, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
She was sent to Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, near the Kuwaiti border — a detention facility that housed some of the most dangerous and significant prisoners of war.
After a couple of months, Liz took on convoy security duty, protecting supply convoys traveling Iraq’s dangerous, attack-prone roads.
Three months into her deployment, on September 28, 2005, she was riding in the second vehicle of a convoy when her Humvee was hit by a roadside IED. The blast claimed her life and that of U. S.
Army Sgt. Steve Morin Jr. , of Arlington, Texas.
Elizabeth N. Jacobson was 21 years old. She was laid to rest with full military honors in Pompano Beach, Florida, and posthumously received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Her legacy lives on in powerful ways. The south gate at Goodfellow Air Force Base is now called “Jacobson Gate,” and the Physical Apprehension and Restraint Training facility at Lackland Air Force Base carries her name. The Air Force also created the Elizabeth N.
Jacobson Award for Expeditionary Excellence, honoring Airmen who shine during deployments.
From a girl who struggled in kindergarten to a hero who answered the call when her nation needed her — her story makes you wonder: what would the world look like if we all had a little more of Liz’s heart?
