As the sun rose over Fort Bliss, hundreds of soldiers gathered and focused their attention on a photograph held high by Chad Ballance, lead recruiter for the Salute to Life program. The image showed a six-year-old girl, a poignant symbol of the mission ahead.

“My first step was when I heard about a young child who had been diagnosed with a fatal blood cancer,” Ballance recalled at the start of his military service. “I decided to do something about it,” “so I started registering as many people as I could and telling them, ‘You could be somebody’s cure. You could be somebody’s cure.'”

This young girl was diagnosed with fatal blood cancer, a disease that can be treated through bone marrow donation, a process managed by Salute to Life at the Department of Defense. Every soldier was offered the opportunity to make a life-changing contribution.

For many patients, a bone marrow donation is their only chance for survival. Unfortunately, bone marrow donation was not a priority at Fort Bliss for years, and not a single one was performed for over a decade. That changed when Spc. Christopher Sutton, a satellite communications system operator and maintainer assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, Division Artillery, 1st Armored Division, launched Operation Ring the Bell—now the largest bone marrow donation in Army history. Sutton’s action has already impacted 44 units at Fort Bliss and reached thousands of soldiers with a call to action: Save the life of a fellow American, in uniform or not.

Sutton’s efforts convinced over 4,000 soldiers to sign up in just 11 days. As a result, the Operation Ring the Bell team has statistically saved ten lives in just two weeks, giving hope to people who would otherwise have had little hope. Sutton’s ultimate goals are to spread the word about the Salute to Life program and change the way these life-saving actions are performed, thereby saving exponentially more lives.

“Operation Ring the Bell is a campaign to modernize and revitalize the Salute to Life program, particularly within the Army,” Sutton explained. “It’s important to me because it’s an opportunity to directly impact and change both the military and my country – saving lives.”

Ballance echoed Sutton’s sentiments, emphasizing that the Army could make a significant contribution to this life-saving movement. He pointed out that if initiatives like Operation Ring the Bell were institutionalized and integrated into the Army’s training and readiness procedures, the impact would be enormous. The challenge of finding perfect donors is enormous, but with its vast and diverse workforce, the Army represents a goldmine of potential genetic matches. This is critical considering that 18,000 people are diagnosed each year with life-threatening diseases requiring bone marrow transplants, including 500 within the Army itself.

To save a life, a soldier can start the process by donating a DNA sample using a simple saliva swab. The process is straightforward: take a swab from the oral cavity, place the swab in a sanitary envelope provided by Salute to Life and submit it along with some basic information. Soldiers across Fort Bliss praised the system for its simplicity and ease of use, a deciding factor in participation.

“Once a soldier understands how simple this program is and realizes how little impact it has on their body compared to the life-saving effect it could have on someone else, they realize that we can all make a difference,” Ballance said. “And it all starts with just two swabs.”