“Save the life of a fellow American, in uniform or not!”

This simple yet powerful message was the driving force as more than 4,000 Soldiers volunteered and registered for the Department of Defense’s Salute to Life bone marrow donation program. The action plan called for a two-week bone marrow donation drive held at multiple locations and units at Fort Bliss, Texas, from August 5-16, 2024.

This effort was the latest success story of the soldier-led call to action campaign called “Operation Ring the Bell.”

This effort is considered the largest bone marrow registry drive in Army history and reached thousands of soldiers at the massive Army base in West Texas.

The Soldier behind the campaign is Army Spc. Christian Sutton, a native of Sumter, South Carolina, who serves as a satellite communications systems operator and maintenance technician at Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 1st Armored Division.

Sutton’s ultimate goal is to raise awareness of the Salute to Life program and transform the way the Army integrates this process into its organic systems to increase access to and donations for these life-saving actions, saving exponentially more lives.

“Operation Ring the Bell is a campaign to modernize and revitalize the Salute to Life program, particularly within the U.S. 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.”

Sutton and his team of volunteers worked with Chad Ballance, a senior recruiter for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Salute to Life program. Ballance echoed Sutton’s sentiments, emphasizing that the Army can make a significant contribution to this life-saving movement.

He noted that institutionalizing initiatives like Operation Ring the Bell and integrating them into the Army’s training and readiness processes would have a profound impact.

Like Sutton, Ballance is passionate about educating others and spreading the word about the importance of bone marrow donation.

“My first step was when I heard that a young child had been diagnosed with a fatal blood cancer,” Ballance recalls of his early years in the military. “I decided to do something about it,” he says. “So I started registering as many people as I could and telling them, ‘You could help somebody. You could help somebody.'”

His commitment to the cause was evident when he spoke to Fort Bliss soldiers about the Department of Defense’s Salute to Life program.

As the sun rose over Fort Bliss one morning and hundreds of soldiers gathered, their attention was drawn to a photograph held high in the air by Ballance.

The picture showed a six-year-old girl who had been diagnosed with fatal blood cancer, a disease that is treatable through a bone marrow donation.

His message, and the overall message of the campaign, was clear: every soldier was offered the chance to make a life-changing difference in minutes.

Ballance noted that finding the right donor is a huge challenge, but with its large and diverse workforce, the Army is a goldmine for potential genetic matches.

This is critical considering that each year 18,000 people are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases requiring bone marrow transplants – including 500 members of the military itself.

Unfortunately, bone marrow donations were neither common nor a priority at Fort Bliss for several years.

That changed, however, when Sutton, along with a team of volunteer soldiers, made Operation Ring the Bell a part of the Fort Bliss community.

Sutton, 24, affectionately known at Fort Bliss as the “Bone Marrow Guy” and his team saved a statistically significant 10 lives in this latest operation and gave hope to people who previously had little hope.

To save a life, a soldier can start the process by donating a DNA sample through a simple saliva swab.

The procedure is straightforward: take a swab from the oral cavity, place the swab in a hygiene envelope provided by Salute to Life and send it along with some basic information.

Soldiers across Fort Bliss praised the system for its simplicity and ease of use, a key 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.”

About Salute to Life

The Salute to Life program was created to help Department of Defense personnel and their families become voluntary bone marrow donors.

Since its inception in 1991, the program has recruited over one million new potential donors and coordinated over 8,000 cell donations.

For more information about the program, visit the official website.