CSM (R) James Ross

CSM (R) James Ross sat down with me for Heroes Live.

Command sergeant major. Air assault. A little bourbon. North Alabama. Battle Creek, Michigan. Home of Kellogg's. Identical twin brother John. Director of marketing. Same headquarters. Army was not in John's equation. James turned eighteen and wanted to see the world.

Parents divorced when they were two and a half. Raised by mom. Music teacher. Two older sisters. Fairly poor. They did not feel poor. Close-knit. Hardships built character. He and John switched out in French class. Teacher called on him for vocabulary. They got caught.

Not a great student. About a 2.0. Late bloomer. Then a 4.0 on the bachelor's. 3.95 on a master's from UTEP. He figured it out. He just got there late.

He was going to be a Navy corpsman. Dad had been Navy in Korea. Signing day the Navy recruiter was late. Bad weather. Army invited him across the hall. Thirty minutes later he was committed. September 85. Two-year enlistment. About 18,000 for college. Combat engineer. Germany. Fulda Gap. Up all night on wire and minefields. Link up with armor that had been sleeping. Thankless. Highest he got there was assistant squad leader. He did not love being an engineer. BEAR program. Bonus. Patriot missiles. 16 Tango. He knew nothing about Patriot. Thank God for air defense.

Iraq. 2004. One of those days you could not stay out of fire. They lost two pilots. Helped a convoy turn around and get out of a kill zone. Pinned down behind a canal with two others. First man jumped and missed. Went in the water. They jumped. Pulled him out. Ran. Bullets around them. Mortars on top. Did not feel safe until they got back to the vehicles. Day from hell. First Cav. He said he was surrounded by people braver and better than he was.

Memorials in Iraq. Operations sergeant major. Brutal. You still do them. Never forget those two pilots.

I asked him to call the unit to attention. He asked for a pass. Wife already in bed. She gets up at four. He would wake her. His word was this. Be a communicator. Do not just feed your strengths. Hunt your weaknesses and put the work in. First to Fire. Ready in defense. Secure the high ground. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.