Jessica (Morris) Betz
Jessica (Morris) Betz (CAS’02) of La Mesa, Calif., and Sarah (Dixon) Sherrod (ENG’02) of San Diego, Calif., are best friends and former BU roommates who were both commissioned at the USSConstitution 16 years ago. They still serve in the US Navy—Sarah as a reservist helicopter pilot and Jes as an active duty nuclear power surface warfare officer—at Commander, Naval Air Forces Pacific (CNAP) in San Diego. Sarah is the executive assistant to the executive director for CNAP and Jes is the force reactor training assistant for the Nuclear Propulsion Office. Friends for the last 20 years, they have deployed separately around the world; each has married and had two children. Sarah went on to earn an MA in teaching, secondary science (with a physics concentration) from the University of Southern California in 2017, and Jes received an MA in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College in 2010. This is the first time they have been stationed together. Over the years, they have bumped into other former classmates, including Joshua Peters (COM’02) of Coronado, Calif., Jes writes. At the time of writing, Josh was in the prospective executive officer pipeline and was about to assume the position of executive officer, and later commanding officer, of helicopter squadron HSM-79 out of Naval Air Station North Island. “Upon graduation and commissioning, newly minted ensigns leave Boston not knowing when they’ll see their classmates again, but the Navy is smaller than you think,” says Jes.
From the Fall 2018 issue.