SPC Roz Parra

SPC Rosalio Parra sat down with me for Heroes I Know. Roz. Seventy-nine minutes. 82nd Airborne. Air defense.

Born 1986. Whittier. Bell Gardens. Apple Valley in the high desert. Middle child. Only boy. Three older sisters. Three younger. Dressed up and beat up, he says.

Dad loved being American. Country music, not Spanish. A friend a year younger talked Ranger. Roz thought he was crazy. Then one day on a college campus the Army looked like the door.

Specialist in a world of sergeants. He still talks like a man who kept officers and drunks in their lane. Thank you, Roz. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.