Special Forces vet Hemphill a Red Cross crisis chaplain

At the end of the sixth grade, Jasper Hemphill left home and moved in with his aunt and uncle in Philadelphia in 1963. As the oldest of eight children, he was the only one who attended Olive Hill Elementary School. Hemphill returned to Morganton for the ninth grade, then went back to Philadelphia.

By enlisting in the Army under the delayed entry plan, he was able to finish high school. Even before his classmates received their diplomas in 1969, Hemphill was already undergoing basic training at Fort Dix, N.J.

After advanced training in personnel administration, Hemphill was assigned to the 3rd Civil Affairs Group at the Panama Canal Zone as part of the 7th Special Forces Airborne Unit.

Upon arrival, he went through the jungle survival program before going “down country,” a code name (also known as down range) meaning to go fully armed into a combat zone.

The main purpose of the Civil Affairs Group is to serve as a stabilizing presence in countries that the U.S. deems politically sensitive by helping to restore a relationship of trust among civil authorities, the local population, NGOs and the host country’s own military.

As a member of the 7th Special Forces Airborne Unit, Hemphill made a total of 21 jumps, either from Chinook helicopters or the C-130 Hercules, an aircraft well-suited for high-altitude insertions into hostile areas.

Special Forces units consist of elite soldiers trained in security force assistance, reconnaissance, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, and unconventional warfare.

After a year and a half of missions in an area encompassing Nicaragua, Colombia, and everything in between, Hemphill returned to Fort Dix as a recruit trainer. A year later, he went to a nuclear weapons arsenal in New Jersey as a personnel administrator.

From there, Hemphill transferred to a NATO command base in Istanbul, Turkey, as a staff sergeant in charge of personnel. After completing six years of active duty, he was discharged at Fort Bragg, N.C., then returned to Philadelphia where he joined the New Jersey National Guard for two years.

Having been sworn to life-long secrecy, Hemphill declines to talk about his deployments, particularly those in Southeast Asia, a code name during the 1960s and 1970s for the war in Viet Nam, that also included military operations in several other countries. “There are some places I went that I don’t want to talk about or think about,” he said recently.

While growing up in Philadelphia, Hemphill took up the martial arts form of karate, which he continues to practice as part of his fitness workout. Upon returning to Morganton in the late 1970s, in order to provide better schooling for his children and to help care for his mother, he enrolled in the police science curriculum at WPCC, which led to his becoming both an active and later a reserve member of the Maiden Police Department, from 1979 to 1991. At the same time, he started serving as an intern chaplain at the Western Carolina Center.

A bond of friendship developed between Hemphill and D.R. Walker, the Maiden chief of police. Over a period of six months in 1991, they went on frequent hiking and fishing trips together. During this time, Hemphill recalled the many role models in his life and began a personal transformation as a pastoral and spiritual counselor.

Over the next few years, Hemphill became an ordained minister, a holistic pastoral counselor, and a spiritual care disaster chaplain for the American Red Cross, where he has been on call 24 hours a day as a Disaster Action Team volunteer for 26 years. During the week of Christmas alone last year, Hemphill was a disaster team first responder at six house fires.

For four months following Hurricane Helene, Hemphill was deployed as a Red Cross Disaster Spiritual Care Team member in a widespread area, from the Tennessee state line to Statesville, N.C., for a total of 15 days.

Along the way, Hemphill became the program manager for the Olive Hill Community Economic Development Corporation, from 2000 until 2018. He was also a volunteer chaplain for the Burke County Sheriff’s Department for 10 years and has been a chaplain with the Morganton Department of Public Safety for six years. Hemphill has also been a hospice volunteer for AMOREM (formerly Burke Hospice) for 30 years.

The N.C. Governor’s Volunteer Service Award was presented to Hemphill on May 15, 2025.

“Jasper was nominated by the American Red Cross, but he could have been nominated by a number of organizations he’s involved in serving all over this community,” said Brownie Rochefort, who made the presentation. “Jasper, to me, is the epitome of what this award is all about. Jasper, with his quiet demeanor, possesses a passion for serving others in the world with excellence and with joy.”