Jonathan Jefferson

Born on May 23, at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago. My arrival was no surprise,

but it was unexpected. I weighed 2 pounds and 8 ounces and was nearly two months

premature. The doctors tried to let my mother down easily, but it did not work. She refused to

give up on me. She hoped and prayed, and started sneaking beans and cornbread into the

hospital in an effort to put some weight on me. It worked! I am humbled by my mother’s efforts

and grateful just to be here. Contrary to those doctors’ expectations, I now stand 6’2” and weigh

230 pounds. No one in that hospital could have imagined that, in 2003, I would bench-press 350

pounds for the first time in the country of Iraq, on an airfield that had belonged to Saddam

Hussein.