By William A. Weathers
The Cincinnati Enquirer

ANDERSON TOWNSHIP - When William and Beth Jacobs last spoke with their son, Marine 1st Lt. Todd Jacobs, last week he was "pretty up-beat, but tired."

"It was a week ago, 2 o'clock Tuesday morning,'' William Jacobs said Tuesday.

"He said he was doing pretty well and focusing on getting his mission accomplished."

Although their son isn't allowed to talk about where he is or what he's doing, they have been able to track his movements by reading news reports on the whereabouts of the 2nd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment in Iraq, his parents said.

Jacobs, a 1997 graduate of St. Xavier High School and a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, is on his second tour in the Middle East, having been stationed in Iraq and Kuwait, his parents said.

His infantry unit participated in the initial invasion of Iraq.

As a first lieutenant, Todd serves as executive officer of his infantry unit, providing assistance to the captain, William Jacobs said.

When Jacobs completed his training at the Naval Academy he had a choice of fulfilling his five-year military commitment in the Navy or the Marines.

"He wanted the challenge of being a Marine,'' said his father.

"He's a child who played with G.I. Joes," his mother said.

Their son is single, but got engaged on New Year's Eve to a California woman he met while stationed at Camp Pendleton, his parents said.

The couple is tentatively scheduled to be married next April or May.

Todd Jacobs' last trip home to visit to Cincinnati to visit his family was in July.

Last March, as the U.S. invasion in Iraq was under way, William Jacobs said in a letter to his son:

"You never took the easy path. Each choice gave you a new and tougher challenge and each challenge you surmounted. With each one, you grew.

"Now is the greatest challenge of your life. This too, you will conquer. Long ago, I considered you a man, now a man who surpasses me and many others."