Jeremy Keller: Continuing Family Legacy

For Jeremy Keller, military service is a long-standing family tradition that he’s been proud to continue.

“Pretty much every generation in my family has served, whether it was 23 years in the Navy for one of my grandfathers or four years in the Navy for my dad,” he said. “We’ve been able to trace our family history using Ancestry.com and 23andMe and found out we had ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. So I always knew I wanted to heed that call.”

Realizing early on that college wasn’t for him, Keller enlisted in the United States Army during his junior year of high school in New York, signing up for the Option 40 contract to join the Ranger regiment. His official departure date was June 28, 2001, just a few months before 9/11. After Keller completed basic training airborne school, he continued into the Ranger Indoctrination Program (now known as the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program) prior to assignment with the 3rd Ranger Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he spent 2002 to 2014.

“I served in every position in a rifle platoon, from private machine gunner, team leader, squad leader, weapon squad leader and platoon sergeant,” he said. “I was also a K-9 handler and kennel master.”

Later transferring over to Hunter Army Airfield on Georgia’s east coast with the 1st Ranger Battalion, Keller did staff time as the operations NCO assistant and was selected to be the Bravo Company First Sergeant. Throughout the course of his 20-year military career, he deployed 18 times, spending a total of 6 ½ years in combat zones before officially retiring July 1, 2021, as a Master Sergeant at Arms.

“I’m very proud of the military service that I’ve been able to complete,” he said. “Being a veteran means a lot to me because you’re grouped with an unprecedented number of heroes. It helped shape who I am significantly.”