Providence Native Goes from Military to NY State Town Judge

Jessie Scheer, a 2000 Providence High School graduate, planned to be a career military officer when he enlisted in the United States Army following his high school graduation.

After basic training Scheer entered advanced training to become a combat engineer, a job that requires a lot of training.
“I am sapper and, air assault qualified, completed the urban mobility breacher course and have been trained as an explosive ordnance clearance agent and unit movement officer,” he said. “I have been in a lot of schools.”
A combat engineer, also known as a sapper, is a soldier who performs a variety of construction and demolition tasks under combat conditions. Such tasks typically include constructing and breaching trenches, tank traps and other fortifications, bunker construction, bridge and road construction or destruction, laying or clearing land mines, and other physical work in the battlefield.

“If you need it built we build it. “If you need it destroyed we blow it up. If you need the enemy to go a certain direction, we build obstacles. If you want to go someplace, we will make sure there is a road, bridge, or tunnel to get you there.”

Scheer went on five deployments during his military career, spending just short of five years in combat. But in 2010 his military career was cut short while serving in Iraq during April of 2010.
Scheer was airlifted back to the United States, and then in February of 2012 he received a medical discharge.
After his military career was complete, Scheer relocated to the town of Philadelphia, NY. There he was elected to serve on the Philadelphia City Court as a city justice.

“A town justice is a town or village judge that handles all the same cases that a Webster county judge would handle, except family court and felony cases,” Scheer explained. “I am called at all hours of the night for DUI’s, arrest warrants, and misdemeanor arraignments.”