During his junior year at Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School, Nick Mayo enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves. It was the beginning of a 13-year stint of serving in the military.

“I went to boot camp the summer between my junior and senior high school,” he said. “Then when I finished high school, I finished out the rest of my training for the Reserves.”

Mayo, of Bourbonnais, said he tried to go active duty, but there was a large drawdown as it was right around the time the U.S. military was getting out of Iraq. The Army was drawing down active duty personnel and beefing up the Reserves. He then did his specialist training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.

Trained as a heavy equipment operator, Mayo, 31, did a 13-month tour that took him to Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan in 2016-17.

Serving in the U.S. Army Reserves for Mayo was inspired, in part, by family members who also served. His grandfather, Wilbur “Bill” Mayo, who was a longtime area dentist, spent 30 years in the U.S. Navy and fought in World War II and retired as a commander.

“He was all over the Pacific,” he said.

Mayo’s uncle, Billy Mayo, is a Vietnam veteran, and a grandfather on his mom’s side of the family, Robert Danca, also served in the Navy during World War II. An uncle on his wife, Katie’s side, Gary Hamilton, is also a Vietnam veteran having served in the Navy.

Mayo was in the third grade on 9/11 and that was etched in his memory bank when he landed in Afghanistan in 2017. He wanted to serve because he didn’t want what happened in 2001 to happen again here.

He saw good and bad during his tour, but he remains friends with those he served alongside.

“My best friend to this day is one of the guys I met while I was in service,” Mayo said. “He [Derek Elmer] lives in Wisconsin, so we get together, usually around the holidays, and a couple times this summer. My wife and his wife are best friends. That’s really what I miss most about it is the people you’re with.”

Mayo began a career in law enforcement in 2013 as a corrections officer at the Jerome Combs Detention Center in Kankakee. He then took a position as a Champaign County deputy sheriff in 2020 before coming back to the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Department in 2023. He’s been in investigations for about a year as part of the Tri-County Auto Theft division.

“It says Tri-County but we actually handle five [counties],” he said.

The unit handles auto thefts in Kankakee, Iroquois, Will and Grundy counties and part of Livingston County. It’s gratifying work that drives him to do the job.

“Your car is everything,” Mayo said. “You need your car to go to work, you need your car to pick up your kids, you need your car to get groceries. You need your car to do all this stuff, and when somebody takes that from you, that’s a huge violation of your sense of security. It’s a huge impact on your finances. Your everyday life revolves around that car. So it gets very gratifying, especially when we’re able to recover the car.”

Mayo also sees a correlation between his military training and his law enforcement work.

“In my opinion, coming from a military background gives you the ability to talk to people and talk to people with a level of respect, because that military discipline is really pounded in, obviously, early on,” he said. “But it also gives you the ability to maintain your composure when chaos is around you. I think it gives me the ability to stay calm. I don’t mind the chaos. I actually like the chaos.”