This story originally appeared in The Good Life magazine’s May-June 2025 issue, published by Urban Toad Media.
Many people in the Fargo-Moorhead community likely recognize Jason Benson. He’s been a steady presence through the past couple of decades of flood fights and has led many road projects while he served as the Cass County engineer and now as the executive director of the Metro Flood Diversion Authority. However, hiding behind that hardhat or suit, depending on the day, is a badass but humble hero.
Benson’s military accolades sound like a list from an action movie. He’s an Army Ranger who has spent 36 years – and counting – in infantry units. He wears a Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Expert Infantryman’s Badge, Air Assault Badge and Ranger Tab. He completed Army Pathfinder and Army Airborne training schools, earned the U.S. Navy Fleet Marine Force officer qualification badge, and completed the Norwegian Army Winter Warfare Instructor Course. He’s taken part in training missions in Norway, Germany, Croatia and Lithuania. He’s even stood with presidents, dined with the queen of Norway, and met the king of Jordan. Years of his life have been spent deployed on combat and peacekeeping missions, including a 22-month mission to Iraq and deployments to Kuwait, Jordan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. Today, he still serves, having risen to the rank of brigadier general.
His robust career required hard work and sacrifice, but it also involved being willing to accept a new challenge when he was able.
“You can’t be a ‘no’ person all the time. Sometimes you need to stick up for your family and look at your priorities and say ‘no,’ but it’s better to be a ‘yes’ person and take on those challenges. If you avoid those challenges, you don’t know what you can do. A lot of those challenges make you a better person. So, don’t be afraid to say yes and take on the challenge.”
FROM JAMESTOWN TO D.C.
Benson’s military career – which he anticipated would last only a couple of years before he got out for college – began in 1989 on active duty in the U.S. Army’s Honor Guard, also known as The Old Guard, in Washington, D.C., where he took part in ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon.
When the Gulf War came to an end, he took part in a welcome home event at Andrews Air Force Base that streamed live on national TV. He wore a World War I uniform and stood next to President George H. W. and First Lady Laura Bush and later behind country music singer Randy Travis.
“For a kid from Jamestown, North Dakota, it was a pretty awesome experience – one of those unique things I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do,” he said.
The opportunity to say “yes” continued to present itself. Soon, rather than getting out after two years on active duty, he was back in Fargo-Moorhead for college at NDSU while serving in the Minnesota Army National Guard and taking part in ROTC.
After graduating with a civil engineering degree in 1996, Benson, who was already Airborne qualified, spent 10 months at Fort Benning, Georgia, knocking out a series of challenging military schools, including Infantry Officer Basic Course and Pathfinder school – training on drop zone operations and air assault planning. Next it was two months of intensive training to become an Army Ranger. With little sleep and food under stressful training conditions, his weight dropped from 195 to 175.
He graduated two weeks before getting married, but there wasn’t a need to get alterations. In just three weeks, he went from his lightest weight of 175 to his heaviest weight of 210.
“Your body just packs it on to prepare for when you go back into a deficit,” he said. “If you look at our wedding pictures, you’ll see I kind of had chubby cheeks.”
BADASS RUNS IN THE FAMILY
Benson met his wife, Julie, in ROTC and she graduated Airborne school shortly before he did. After college, they were stationed in Germany together, but that didn’t necessarily mean they saw each other frequently. As an Army nurse, Julie deployed every summer over their three years in Germany, from 1997 to 1999, while Benson was busy with field exercises and, in 1998, a peacekeeping deployment to Macedonia.
The next year, they were both in Kosovo as part of the initial entry force following the air war. Being the first in means there’s not much in the way of accommodations. What’s now a built-up base at Camp Bondsteel was then a wheat field with concertina wire around the perimeter. Julie worked as an emergency room nurse there while Benson moved to a different base in country. He still found a way to see her once a week during meetings at her base.
“It made it a little more enjoyable knowing I’d get the chance to see her every now and then,” he said.
When the deployment ended, they moved back to Fargo-Moorhead, where Benson rejoined the Guard and Julie ended her military career and began work as a nurse at Sanford. That doesn’t mean her service to her country ended, though.
In 2003, Benson left on a 10-month deployment to Bosnia while Julie stayed home to raise their sons, who were 2 years and 8 months old at the time. It was a peacekeeping mission, but the area was still volatile, and tensions were high.
“One of the things that I think was critical, too, was that deployment really honed a lot of skills that a year and a half later when we deployed to Iraq, we were able to use those skills to help fight in combat in Iraq,” he said.
In his 18 months between deployments, the Benson family added a daughter to the mix and Benson completed his master’s degree. Then, it was on to Iraq while Julie now had a 10-month-old, 2-year-old and 4-year-old to care for at home. They didn’t realize at the time that it would be nearly two years before their father would be back home.
As the assistant operations officer, Benson helped plan combat missions in one of the most dangerous areas in Iraq at that time: between Fallujah and Ramadi. Just weeks before they were to return home, the Al Anbar Awakening began, and the president ordered a surge in forces. The 18-month mission had turned into 22 months away while in some of the most challenging conditions a soldier could face.
Despite experiencing the sacrifices of having their father gone so much, all three Benson children now serve in the Army. Seth is a West Point grad working in cyber warfare in Fort Meade, Maryland, Nicholas is an Army diver stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Emma works in aviation operations and is stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska.
STRIVING FOR GOODNESS
Benson credits his family and colleagues for what they did back home to enable him to serve. That support stayed behind him as he left for his most recent deployment to the Middle East. As a recently promoted one-star general, Benson deployed to Kuwait and Jordan throughout all of 2024 as the assistant division commander – maneuver for the 34th Infantry Division.
“When I was younger, my dad’s coworker would send me letters every now and then and joke and call me ‘the general,’ but for me I always thought if I could retire as a lieutenant colonel and do battalion command, that was probably the pinnacle of what I wanted to do. I’ve focused on where I’m at and doing the best with where I’m at and not focusing too much on the future but just sticking to it. It’s amazing how the opportunities opened.”
While overseas last year, Benson led the biggest exercise ever executed by Central Command in Jordan; it included 33 countries and more than 5,000 soldiers.
That and his Bosnia mission were among the most rewarding.
“You didn’t have the threat level as in Iraq, but I came away feeling good about all the different things we’d accomplished as an organization,” he said.
So, what’s next in Benson’s illustrious military career? That remains to be seen.
“I’ve got the attitude I’ve had for probably the last 10 years since becoming a battalion commander: I’m just going to work my hardest to be the best I can at my current job, and hopefully that carries me forward.”
With all that experience under his Army belt, how would Benson describe a good life?
“Working and serving with people that are committed to serving their community and nation and want to build a more positive environment, whether it’s in the military or the community. I think it’s important that we all try to be good people. It’s not important whether you’re the greatest, if you can just be a good person. If you’re a good person, greatness will come out of that.”
