Ashley Bergfield – John Jay Fellow, Spring 2016
LTJG, US Navy; JAG Attorney
Few would look for a successful US Navy JAG Corps attorney in the small ranching communities of Nebraska, but for Ashley Bergfield, that’s exactly where it all began.
Ashley was born in North Platte, a small town in the Cornhusker state. Her parents—both lawyers—had attended law school together, though her mother was also a certified public accountant. When Ashley was five, her family moved to the San Antonio area in Texas, and both parents stopped practicing law. Her father had inherited the family ranch in Nebraska, meaning that the family would spend the rest of her childhood splitting their time between Texas and Nebraska. While her father shifted his focus to the ranching industry, her mother began working as a CPA.
From Western Nebraska to the Middle East
Despite the geographic dichotomy of her childhood, Ashley’s schooling was entirely based in Texas—from Pre-K all the way up to college, when she attended Baylor University to pursue a degree in international studies and political science. While in the Honors Program at Baylor, she became intrigued with Middle Eastern studies thanks to the guidance of one of her professors. During winter break of her senior year, her family took a trip to Israel, touring many of the holy sites and famous landmarks of the country. The trip served to link Ashley’s fascination with Middle Eastern culture to her studies in political science, and she began to consider a career in foreign affairs with the State Department. Shortly after graduation, she was offered a full-ride scholarship to Hebrew University’s Masters’ program in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, which she accepted, moving to Jerusalem for the next year to study.
Bergfield describes that year as a time of growth for her, as she was immersed in a culture so radically different from her own. “It really kind of showed me that I was, in fact, interested in Middle Eastern studies,” she recalls, “but I wasn’t certain how I wanted to do that.” It was during this year, however, that she first began to consider attending law school, primarily with the goal of working for women’s rights in the Middle East. She also learned of the John Jay Institute for the first time from a college friend who had decided to attend the program the following year, encouraging her to apply. In September of 2015, Ashley completed her Masters’ and returned to the United States, attending the John Jay Institute in the spring of 2016. During her time at John Jay, she learned that she had been accepted into law school at the University of Texas.
Ashley attended three years of law school at UT, landing an internship during her first summer with the Navy JAG Corps in Rhode Island. The next summer she spent in Israel working anti-terrorism litigation. And this past March, she was commissioned as a naval Officer and began her legal career in the Navy JAG Corps in October.
Which is Safer? Jerusalem or Chicago?
Given her early fascination with Middle Eastern culture and her experiences in the region, Ashley has some unique perspectives to offer on the state of affairs in the area. Before her time living in Israel, she acknowledges having a basic understanding of the region brought on by extensive traveling as a child. She quickly learned, however, that much of her knowledge had been shaped by bias. “Overall, I think a lot of my ideas were shaped by living in the Bible Belt,” she says, “and there also being kind of an antagonism and stereotyping of the region… the other thing that I came to realize living there was that what you see on the news is not necessarily what’s happening.”
The true state of affairs was wildly different than that painted by the news sources and social media outlets in the US. She recalls her friends’ hysteria surrounding violence in Jerusalem around the time of her studies in the city. Her experience, however, was not what many would expect. “I felt safer in Jerusalem than I would ever feel in downtown Chicago or Austin.” She came to understand that the humanity of the people surrounding her day in and day out was overlooked by sources scrambling for sensational news, and Ashley found herself questioning the validity of the information that had been set in front of her for years. It taught her the value of questioning sources and checking for validity, a practice she still employs to this day.
The quest for source validity is not an easy one, Ashley acknowledges, but it begins by simply being aware of differing viewpoints and maintaining an open mind. “You have to be willing and open to hearing what you might not want to hear,” she says. Personally, she has found that a certain level of self-awareness, intentional education, and a wide reading base can go a long way toward eliminating bias and reaching more accurate understandings of current events.
Realistic Hope for Israel and the Broader Middle East
Concerning the future of the Middle East, she takes a realistic perspective. Though she believes the area will continue to face unrest and struggle, she holds that there are things that can be done to assuage the situation. She cites that one of her primary reasons for going to law school was to find ways for Americans, Westerners, and Christians to positively impact the area without forcing their culture upon the peoples of sovereign nations. Her conclusion: “I think education can be one of the avenues that can best help people.” Recognizing the impact of her own education, she believes that offering educational opportunities to the people of the Middle East—particularly women who could not get such opportunities on their own—could serve as a way for the West to better the conditions in the region without threatening national sovereignty or imposing culture.
The John Jay Experience: Rethinking Faith, Church, and Christian Mission
As she continues to pursue her professional goals and ambitions, Ashley looks back on her time at John Jay as foundational in her spiritual development. Growing up in a Southern Baptist background, she had never been exposed to liturgy, but she was intrigued by it and the principles it taught of incorporating faith and intentional community into daily practice, particularly in selecting a church. “John Jay helped me to think about what I valued in a church,” she says, citing her values as solid Biblical teaching, Christ-honoring music, and a strong young adult community for accountability and growth.
It is this community—or rather, a potential lack of this community—that concerns her the most in her career. In government and foreign policy work, frequent moves are common, a fact that can make building a meaningful community of believers challenging. She asks for prayer on this issue, for both discovering community and for living out her faith in visible ways within her work. That is her goal, after all: “How I can demonstrate my faith through my work and that it just becomes evident through my actions—my words—that I’m a Christian without people even needing to ask.”
Ashley Bergfield is a Lieutenant Junior Grade in the United States Navy. All views expressed in this article are the participants' own and do not represent the official view of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, or the Department of the Navy.