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When he stepped on the mound for the Wolves this spring versus St. Cloud State, Jeremiah Maxfield made his NCAA Division II debut; but had taken a much different path than his teammates. While most collegiate baseball players spend the summer after their senior year playing legion or town ball, the Watertown, Wisconsin native spent his in basic training.
 
His first collegiate pitch was years down the line, following three deployments with the US Army to some of the most hostile environments in the world. Maxfield recounted his experiences in the Army and his unorthodox path to Northern State in this edition of Wolf Stories.
 
From High School Graduate to Infantryman
I left for the army when I was 18, immediately after my high school graduation. I attended basic training and advanced individual training at Fort Benning [Georgia] for 6 months before being awarded the Military Occupational Specialty of Indirect Fire Infantryman (MOS 11C).
   
As soon as I graduated from [basic], I was sent on a plane to Fort Knox [Kentucky] where I joined the 2nd Battalion 2nd Infantry Regiment in the 1st Infantry Division. My new unit was a light infantry unit which meant that we had to be able to walk to everything. Being in a light unit like this is extremely prestigious since it is a lot harder and more physically demanding than most units in the Army.
 
Deployment 1: Afghanistan Pakistan Border (12 Months)
I deployed 3 weeks later [out of Fort Knox] to the Ghazni Province in eastern Afghanistan right on the Pakistan border. This area was one of the most dangerous in the whole country. Once on the ground, I was on a line platoon which meant that I was going out on at least one patrol a day, with only one mission which was to find and kill the enemy.
 
At first I was just part of the heavy weapons squad, along with my normal M4 rifle I also carried an M224 60mm mortar that I was able to use during combat operations to rain down 5 pound explosive nerf balls on the insurgents. After a while though we had an opening in the sniper section in which I tried out and I made the section.
 
After changing my roles, I became part of a SKT otherwise known as a Small Kill Team which meant that we would roll out in the full 30 man platoon and enter an area. 4 of us would stay behind while everyone else would leave and we would set up an ambush and wait for the enemy to arrive sometimes taking several days with our nearest help usually a few miles away in case it got really bad. It became almost the norm that you would get in some type of firefight every time we left our tiny little compound.
 
During this deployment I had built up quite the reputation with the Taliban of being one of the most dangerous snipers in the entire area of operation. Because of this I ended up having a 100,000 bounty on my head for anyone that would have killed me overseas. We began to see an influx of foreign fighters, mainly Chechens who were very skilled in combat and very nearly collected that bounty many times.
 
Over the course of the whole deployment my platoon lost a total of 8 of the original 30 guys. No matter what happened though you had to have complete control of your emotions at all times otherwise it could be you that was lying there coughing up your own blood.
 
The longer you spend overseas the more it changes you as a person, and you begin to long for the battle every day. I went on over 400 combat patrols, and I had been shot at by snipers, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades more times than I could count. I was not able to come out completely unscathed though. I was shot 2 times, once in the helmet and then once in my front bullet proof plate. I also was blown up multiple times, from improvised explosive devices. This resulted in my back being scared up pretty bad from heat during the explosion, as well as having to wear hearing aids for the rest of my life due to so much damage from rupturing my inner ear drums.
 
Deployment 2: Southern Afghanistan (6 Months)
My second deployment was a little bit different than the first since my platoon was directly attached to a Special Forces unit and we worked with a good amount of navy seals. I was still in the sniping section for this whole deployment. We were based in the Zabul Province in Southern Afghanistan.
 
Our main purpose on this deployment was to load up into helicopters and air assault either directly onto our objective or somewhere in the desert. We would carry everything on our backs and walk for 40 miles through the mountains [at times]. During this deployment we did not lose the sheer number that we did on my first deployment but it still was not a cake walk by any means. We were shot at almost nonstop, but by this point in my life I had become used to this.
 
While we were there it was also a very hard time in Afghanistan since it was the year of their second democratic election and one of our big jobs was to make sure that this would happen without the Taliban being able to stop it. We did this by hunting out the bad guys, as well as providing close range security as almost the secret service of the country to protect the government at all costs.
 
Deployment 3: Kuwait (6 Months)
Since I had been in this [same] unit for four years and I had already done two back-to-back deployments, the Army decided that it was time for me to change to a new unit. I moved to Fort Hood [Texas] where I was part of the 2nd Battalion 7th Cavalry Regiment. By this time in my career, I was a sergeant promotable and was back splitting time between the mortar and sniper sections.
 
In 2017, I deployed as part of Operation Spartan Shield that was based out of Kuwait. Upon arriving, I was promoted to Staff Sergeant. I was put in as the Platoon Sergeant of a heavy mortar platoon which consisted of several 120mm tracked mobile mortar systems that I would employ in battle. I had to take care of 25 guys and all the vehicles [in the platoon]. I would run all the fire missions, computing them to make sure that my guys could hit the target.
 
I also had to spend ample time behind a sniper rifle again due to the fact that I was one of two guys in the whole unit that had actual combat time with a sniper rifle. This deployment was nothing like my first two, as most of my missions would be sitting in a sniper hide for a few days at a time watching camel herders on the border, waiting for ISIS to come. Eventually we [were] put into the fight, and would go into Iraq to set up missions and take out targets of opportunity.
 
The Move to Civilian Life
He returned home early [from deployment in Kuwait] due to the fact that he was leaving the Army. Within ten days of being home from his last deployment, Maxfield was at Howard College in Big Spring, Texas where he began his college baseball career.
 
Maxfield made five appearances at Howard College, without giving up an earned run and notching three strikeouts. The Hawks reached the regional tournament in both of his two seasons on the roster.
 
In his first shortened season with the Wolves, Maxfield threw 4.0 innings with two strikeouts and a 1.000 fielding percentage. He faced St. Cloud State, Regis, Findlay, and Wayne State. Maxfield is a Biology major at Northern State University and will enter his final academic year in the fall of 2020.