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My Oldest Brother

First Sergeant Arthur Ross, Jr.

(AKA “Pops”)

I was so proud of my oldest brother, Arthur Ross, Jr., because he was good at all that he wanted to do in his life. I can remember when he was the starting point guard of the basketball team. I enjoyed watching the team warm up because they had a jacket that had a collar that hung down below the center of their back. And when they did a layup, the collar would lift up like a superman cape and I thought that was awesome. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to play varsity basketball so I could have that jacket. I really enjoyed seeing him play, especially when he shot a free-throw or had a jump shot. He had an excellent free-throw record as well as jump shot. When he called the play, his teammates respected his leadership and followed his direction. When the game was close, the team always counted on him to make a clutch shot and he was always up to the test.

We both played in the band. He was the first seat clarinet in the marching band and also in concert band. I remember at his graduation, he played a solo and it was a beautiful song. He had practiced it so well that he was awesome. I can remember him sitting in a chair or just lying on the floor somewhere fingering his clarinet and he didn’t even have his horn. He practiced and concentrated on playing his clarinet until he became an excellent clarinet musician. He always worked so very hard at everything that he wanted to accomplish.

When he finished high school, he enlisted in the Army and made a career of the military. I remember the time he went to Vietnam after he finished his boot camp and after his jump school training. My brother was an Airborne Artillery soldier. I remember pictures of him jumping out of the airplanes and you can see in his face that he loved it. He completed his first tour in Vietnam and came home on leave in a new Camaro; it was a top of the line vehicle at that time. This was the era of the high performance car in the 1960’s. My brother was in a zone and he was enjoying his leave partying and living it up. After his thirty-day leave was up and he left for his new unit, he had a car accident and totaled his car, leaving a facial scar as a reminder of the accident. I really don’t know just what my brother learned from this accident but I feel that he thinks about it even to this day.

My brother was a wild thing in the prime of his life. He did another tour in Vietnam and never went to war again. He spent the rest of his career training younger troops and he excelled in this area. He was promoted to Master Sergeant and achieved success in his career. Of all the achievements in my oldest brother’s lifetime, one of his greatest was to make his younger brother proud to be a brother of such a great individual. Even though he doesn’t realize, he became an inspiration to me early in my young life by giving me the tools to achieve the success that I have today. It has never been a dull moment looking up to my oldest brother.