SGT Alexis Morgan

Sergeant Alexis Morgan sat down with me for Heroes I Know. Ardennes stories. The full sit-down.

Born in Panama. Dominican father. Spanish mother. Oldest of four. Shy kid. Cowboys. Track. Break dancing. Grocery store since sixteen. His mother pushed the Army. Better than the aisle.

He enlisted March 1989. Twenty-three. She was dying. Lung cancer. She passed his first day in the military. That is how he got in. She is still the driving force.

Fort Jackson. Fort Dix. Airborne school. July 1989 he landed in the 82nd. Then Desert Storm. Squad leader Tony Mayfield. A hundred and forty degrees. Cold nights. Water gone. A raw private on an NCO’s hip. He wanted to stay alive.

Culinary specialist. They called him spoons. Jelly donuts. He cooked lasagna and omelets like it mattered. Jumpmaster Payton named him Rocky. Dwire. Staff Sergeant Patton on land nav. Saul Rivera when it was time to get out.

Italy, ninety-six to ninety-eight. Vicenza. Cook of the Year. Almost NCO Cook of the Year. Iron Man team against infantry. They won. He said he never became a man until the twelve-mile from Sicily Drop Zone back to battalion.

First jump at Benning he thought it was the stupidest thing a man could do. Weak bowels. He jumped anyway. Close to his mom.

He got out after Italy. The marriage broke him. Breakfast cook at a Holiday Inn. Then he sold alarm systems and got good at it. South Carolina now. Wife is a lawyer. Kids. Grandchildren Marshall and Clara.

He would go back as a staff sergeant in Charlie Battery. Failure is his fear. That is what drives him. The brotherhood is tighter. Thank you, Alexis. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.