Members of Ocean Springs family of 12 excel in the military

City Parks and Leisure Director Geri Straight’s son, a lieutenant colonel in the Army, stopped on the Coast for the Fourth of July holiday on his way to a 10-month assignment to the War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.

With an impressive military record at 41, some say he is on track to be a general. Issac “Ike” Gipson, born and raised in Ocean Springs and Biloxi, told the Sun Herald the assignment puts him on track to be a strategic leader for whatever service the Army has in mind. He said the next step, he hopes, will be full bird colonel.

About general, he said, “some people see it that way. I’ve been in the Army for 19 years. I just try to go from one duty assignment to another.”

Gipson has served as an assistant executive officer to a three-star general at the Pentagon and was selected a military assistant for Obama’s 2013 inauguration.

Straight’s grandchildren have hunted Easter eggs on the White House lawn.

Gipson commanded an air defense artillery battalion, a Patriot missile battery, during the invasion of Iraq and was deployed to Kuiwait for two years as a battalion commander of the 5th Air Defense Artilliary Regiment, a job he relinquished to attend War College.

Gipson is Straight’s only son, but he’s not the only one in her family to excel in a military career.

Straight is from an Ocean Springs family of 12. And her sister, two of her brothers and her sister-in-law all achieved the highest rank for an enlisted person. Her sister Regina Joiner retired as a chief master sergeant in the Air Force, her brother James E. Lewis Jr. and his wife Loma Lewis both retired at the rank of sergeant major in the Army and her youngest brother, John Joiner, recently graduated from Army Sergeants Major Academy in El Paso, assigned to Fort Knox.

John Joiner’s graduation was a family affair as well as a military event, there were so much family attending, and Gipson was there to pin him.

Because the Ocean Springs family is so large, Gipson and John Joiner — nephew and uncle — are only 9 months apart in age and grew up together.

They were raised as brothers, John Joiner said, and at times in their military careers they have met up.

“We’ve looked across from each other on the battlefield,” once when they both happened to be just south of Baghdad, he said.

A city leader

Straight has been with the city’s Parks and Recreations Department for 20 years, and director for eight.

Though from an Ocean Springs family, she raised Gipson in Biloxi, where he was on the basketball team for two state championships. He gave up sports because of an injury and was looking for something else, when a JROTC instructor at Ocean Springs High and friend of the family introduced him to ROTC, Straight said.

Gipson received a full Army ROTC scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, married his college sweetheart, Natalie Emery, and they had three children. He received his bachelor’s degree in accounting and his first commission. Later, he earned his master’s degree in defense analysis.

In a recent interview, he said he planned to pursue his military career as long as he was enjoying it.

“Once it’s not fun anymore,” he told an interviewer, “I’ll consider hanging it up.”

His mother is proud of him, and he says, “She’s always been my hero, and my No. 1 fan.”

Gipson told the Sun Herald that growing up on the Coast helped him be successful in his career and in his travels.

He credited the hospitality of the Mississippi Coast and the atmosphere and support of his family, saying six family members went with him to see John Joiner graduate in El Paso.

“I just changed command at Fort Hood, Texas, after a tour of duty, and a lot of family came out for that,” he said. “Having a good family support structure, that’s why we’re successful in many of our day to day careers.”

Though John Joiner, the youngest of the family, was only 10 when his mother died, he echoes Gipson in the belief that family steered his goals and career.

“The values instilled at a young age by my mother helped me,” he said. “She would say, ‘Don’t quit, follow through, always give 100 percent.’ If you strike out, go finish the game, play as hard as you can.”

This story was originally published July 5, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Members of Ocean Springs family of 12 excel in the military."