LTC Elliot Bissell

LTC Elliot Bissell sat down with me for Heroes Live.

JB. That is what we call him. Active duty. A few months from retirement. I made him a slideshow. Duty. Friends. Family. He said he would cherish it.

Meigs County. Southeastern Ohio. Ohio River Valley. Coal country. Born 1972 in Gallipolis. Town of sixty-six before he joined in 1990. Then it was sixty-five.

Youngest of four. Only boy. Sisters Lisa, Lynn, and Lori. They picked on him. Brother Mike came later. Rural. Cows. Corn. Hay. Christian school over in West Virginia. Joe Burrow's mom is a principal back home. He still goes back.

He fuses the duty with the people. Army brats for kids. He got engaged last year. She keeps him between the white lines.

He is fifty. He wants a beard. Maybe a ponytail. Not too far on the wild side. He volunteers with youth. A little with JRTC. He wishes he had asked his grandparents more about the Depression. They did not trust banks.

Empathy. That is the word. Service does not have to be a uniform. Sit with someone in a home. Put more in than you pull out.

He thanked us. God bless what we are doing. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.