U.S. soldier honors Rev. Jesse Jackson for freeing him, 2 other POWs: 'Life would've been very different'

Former U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Andrew Ramirez doesn't know where he would be today if it weren’t for the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Ramirez, Staff Sgt. Christopher Stone and Specialist Steven Gonzales were ambushed and captured March 31, 1999, by Serbian soldiers while they were on a routine NATO observation patrol near the Macedonian-Yugoslav border.

They were hooded and tied up, then driven into Yugoslavia. The Serbian soldiers paraded the hostages in front of news cameras before locking them in captivity for 32 days.

“During that time, we still didn’t know what was going on but ultimately felt like they were going to just kill us, like they had nothing else to do with us because we had nothing to tell them,” Ramirez said.

One day, the Serbian soldiers told the hostages they were being taken to a “nicer prison.” Ramirez recalls his hood being pulled off after walking through a doorway. He saw more TV cameras then turned left and saw Jackson with an interfaith delegation.

“I was very confused. I joked with him and I’ve always told him, I said, ‘I turned and saw you and I thought, oh, man, they got Rev. Jackson too. What’s going on in this country?’” Ramirez said Thursday before an international tribute to Jackson, who died Feb. 17 at age 84. Numerous national dignitaries from across the world honored Jackson at the event at the Hyatt Hotels corporate headquarters in the West Loop.

Ramirez continued: “It was very good to see somebody that I recognized, and to hear him talk to me and tell me that what was happening to us was something that was known back in the states because we had no idea what anybody had known.”

Unknown to Ramirez and his comrades, Jackson was leading an ecumenical delegation, along with then-U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich, to negotiate the release of the three soldiers with then-Serbian President Slobodan Milošević.

Then-President Bill Clinton’s administration advised against Jackson’s trip to Belgrade, Serbia, for the soldiers’ release, arguing it was unsafe and was a publicity move. But Jackson "persevered," said Blagojevich, a former Illinois governor.

“He persevered and he was persuasive, and it came naturally to him,” Blagojevich told the Sun-Times in a phone call. “And I’ll always remember one of the things he said to Milošević at the time, because he [Milošević] had offered one of the soldiers — ‘I’ll give you one.’ And typical Rev. Jackson fashion said, ‘We will not flee unless we can take all three.’

That made an impression on Blagojevich, he said, because he thought Jackson’s persistence to free all three could compromise the deal altogether.

“The interfaith delegation was with us, but he was the whole show and the role I played basically was I was the guy carrying the bags. It was all Jackson… And I spoke a little bit of the language,” said Blagojevich, a son of Serbian immigrants. Blagojevich was later convicted in 2011 on political corruption charges and served time in prison. President Donald Trump issued an unconditional pardon to Blagojevich last year.

In 2019, Jackson was reunited with Ramirez and Stone at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition Headquarters on the South Side.

"Bottom line, we brought them home," Jackson said at that event, referring to the pushback against his effort to release them.

Clinton later honored Jackson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000.

“He has used his legendary prowess at persuading people to do things they are otherwise disinclined to do to free innocents imprisoned around the world,” Clinton said during his speech presenting the award.

Ramirez, who is from California, is now married and has two daughters. They reside in southern California, where he teaches 5th grade.

“I always let [Jackson] know how appreciative I was of everything that he did because it would’ve been so different. We could’ve been there for 30 days, we could’ve been there for 30 months for all we know,” Ramirez, 51, said. “I always have been very grateful for what he did, what he put himself through and the delegation of people that went with him. The path of life would’ve been very different depending on what happened at that point.”