Photo By Heather Ashley | Samantha Harms, chief, Command Information, Fort Cavazos Public Affairs Office, swabs...... read more read more
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FORT CAVAZOS, Texas —Sgt. Christian Sutton, a Soldier based out of Fort Bliss, Texas, whose desire to host a bone marrow donation registration event in 2022 has led to a full-time movement and his designation as “The Bone Marrow Guy,” was at Fort Cavazos April 10-12, registering potential bone marrow donors and furthering his Operation Ring the Bell campaign. Operation Ring the Bell is Sutton’s initiative to register service members, their families and DOD civilians for bone marrow donation under the Salute to Life program, the Department of Defense’s bone marrow donation and research program. Sutton was at Ironhorse Chapel April 10, helping register potential donors during a bone marrow drive organized by Sgt. Makenna Johnson Fenech, who is assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. Chaplain (Col.) Kevin Wainwright, III Armored Corps chaplain, was among those who stopped by the chapel during the drive. He met Sutton at Fort Bliss during one of the bone marrow registration events. A bone marrow donor in 2016, Wainwright has remained in contact with the man who received his bone marrow. He said he respects what Sutton and his team are doing and hopes as many Soldiers as possible will register. “You think they’re probably not going to use you, but when you get the call, it’s a super easy thing,” Wainwright said. The chaplain said the military is a solid pool of donors. “This is another tie of the military doing good things because you have healthy, for the most part, young people that are willing to do this,” Wainwright said. Although registering potential bone marrow donors is Sutton’s full-time job, there is an urgent need to help a fellow Soldier right now. Sgt. Derrick Bishop, a Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Soldier who was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, needs a transplant. Joining the bone marrow registry is a straightforward process. Potential donors complete a card and swab the gums and insides of each cheek. The card and cheek swabs are then submitted and entered into the database to await a match. Sutton was notified recently he is a bone marrow match for someone and will be donating soon. The donation process, Wainwright and Sutton agreed, is straightforward and similar to donating blood or plasma. “It’s an easy process,” Wainwright said. Encouraging others to join the bone marrow registry began in earnest for Sutton three years ago. He said he would walk around Fort Bliss, stop into battalion offices, and talk to the battalion first sergeant or sergeant major about bone marrow registration. “I would convince him to let me come out to his motor pool on Monday and brief Soldiers and register them,” Sutton explained. “I would just say, ‘Hey, I’m Specialist Sutton. I run the Fort Bliss bone marrow program,’ which was true by default because it didn’t exist.” Sutton was convincing, and he would come out to the motor pools and register Soldiers, collect the kits, and mail those kits. He kept records on an app on his phone. No one knew he was doing it all by himself, but he kept at it, fine-tuning his process and making it quicker and more efficient as he continued. “I didn’t really tell anyone I was doing that all the time,” he said. Sutton began helping others around him organize registration drives. His efforts spread, and now installations across the Army host events to raise awareness about bone marrow registration and donation process and register those interested. He and his volunteers worked to bring the Army into their efforts. Shortly thereafter, Sutton was drafting operation orders and meeting with senior-level personnel to create a program from his efforts. He worked up from the division level. “I just went, like, ‘Alright, so, maybe, nothing is impossible,” Sutton said. “Maybe we can go to another. If we did it at one division, let’s do it at another.” Sutton ended up staying back from a rotation in Poland to keep Operation Ring the Bell going. Sutton’s campaign has grown exponentially with team members across the Army scheduling registration drives and spreading the word about the importance of bone marrow donation. Bone marrow donation registration has become his full-time job. “Only 6% of the population is on the national bone marrow donor database,” Sutton said. For more information about Operation Ring the Bell and the Salute to Life program or to request a registration kit, visit http://salutetolife.org/ or call 1-800-627-7693. For information about the National Marrow Donation Program, visit http://nmdp.org/.
| Date Taken: | 04.17.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.29.2025 15:46 |
| Story ID: | 555316 |
| Location: | TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 20 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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