COL Alex “Pancho” Perez-Cruz is a military brat from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and grew up in El Paso, Texas where his father was an Air Defense Artillery Sergeant Major. He entered the Army as a Medic in 1994. Having been awarded an Army ROTC scholarship, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communications from Stephen F. Austin State University and was commissioned as an Armor officer. COL Perez’s first assignments were as a Tank Platoon Leader, Tank Company Executive Officer, and Battalion Maintenance Officer in the 2nd Battalion 69th Armor, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. COL Perez deployed C Company to Kuwait for Operation Desert Spring from March to September 2002. In January 2003, the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor returned to Kuwait, and in March 2003, was part of the invasion of Iraq by the 3rd Infantry Division.
Following graduation of the Infantry Captain’s Career Course in December 2004, COL Perez was once again reassigned to the 3 Infantry Division deploying as the Task Force 2-69 Security Forces Training Team Executive Officer in Diyala Provence, Iraq training and conducting operation with an Iraqi Army Infantry Battalion. He commanded D Company “Death Dealers” for 27 months, spending 14 months in Eastern Baghdad during the 2007-2008 “Surge.” Following company command, COL Perez was assigned to the US Army Armor School in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and served as the Battalion S3 and Executive Officer of 1st Battalion 46th Infantry Regiment (Basic Combat Training) and the S3 and Executive Officer of 2nd Battalion 81st Armor Regiment (Abrams Tank Crewmen One Station Unit Training), 194th Armored Brigade.
COL Perez was selected to attend Spanish Language Command and General Staff College at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in Fort Benning, Georgia. Upon graduation he was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado where he served as an Afghan Army and National Police Security Forces Assistance Training Team Chief and then as the Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition Squadron S3, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment in the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team deploying to Eastern and Southern Afghanistan. COL Perez was then selected to attend the Advanced Military Studies Program. Upon Graduating he was assigned to United States Army North (5th Army) and immediately selected to serve as the Aide-de-Camp to the Commanding General concluding his tour as the Theater (North America) Security Cooperation Plans Chief, G59. COL Perez was then selected an U.S. Army Fellow at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Policy where he was a senior policy strategist for the Assistant Secretary for Strategy, Plans, Analysis, and Risk. COL Perez most recently served as the 3rd Infantry Division ACofS G5, Commander of the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, First Armor Brigade Combat Team, Deputy Chief of Staff, and ACofS G3.
COL Perez hold a Master of Art in International Relations from Webster University and Masters of Military Arts and Science in Theater Operations from the School of Advanced Military Studies. He is a graduate of the Advanced Military Studies Program, Command and General Staff College at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, Airborne School, Armor Officer’s Basic Course, and Infantry Captain’s Career Course.
Colonel Perez-Cruz is married to the former Jeannie Annette Johnson and has two son, Lucas, age 17, and Xavier, age 13.
Episode Transcript: Hispanic Heritage Month – Alexis “Pancho” Perez-Cruz
Stephanie Crider (Host)
(Prerecorded Hispanic Heritage Month intro) The US Army War College celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15th to October 15th. This year, to observe the occasion, the US Army War College Press recorded a series of interviews showcasing war college leadership, faculty, staff, and students. Listen in to hear their insights, anecdotes, and more.
The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.
This episode’s guest is US Army War College student Colonel Alexis Perez-Cruz. Perez is a military brat from Puerto Rico who grew up in El Paso, Texas, where his father was an air defense artillery sergeant major. He holds a master of art (master of the arts) in international relations from Webster University and master’s (master) of military arts and science in theater operations from the School of Advanced Military Studies. He’s a graduate of the Advanced Military Studies program, (US Army) Command and General Staff College at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, (US Army) Airborne School, Armor Officer’s Basic Course (Armor Basic Officer Leader Course), and Infantry Captain’s Career Course.
Thank you, Pancho, for being a part of the war college Hispanic Heritage Month podcast series. We’re glad to have you here.
(Alexis “Pancho” Perez-Cruz)
Oh, it’s great to be here. Love it.
(Host)
Tell us about how your heritage impacts your work.
(Perez-Cruz)
So at one point in my career, I think I had a opportunity to become a FAO (foreign area officer), and I chose to stay armor. And one of the biggest reasons I chose to stay armor is I felt as though I had never worked for anybody who looked like me. And that’s important to me. That’s important to our society and community: that we have leaders that look the led. So being Hispanic—being Puerto Rican, in particular—I feel a strong need to lead in a honorable way so that I can set the best example for our soldiers.
(Host)
What’s your biggest professional accomplishment to date?
(Perez-Cruz)
So I say there’s two, and I’d like to divide them up. My biggest one is being a battalion commander—and not for the fact that I got to command soldiers and it was cool, we got to shoot stuff, and tanks and infantry, but because I was able to have a lot of mentees. I was able to lead these soldiers—in particular, lieutenants and captains—because the future of our Army are those lieutenants and captains. And I have a lot of energy, and I like to devote a lot of time to developing them. And that is my legacy.
And then I think my second one would be as a English-second-language kid who . . . up ‘til high school, I was basically told, “You might go to college. You might not.” And then here I am at the White House, leading a national strategy and leading the meetings for a strategy that was eventually signed by the president. And I was on the executive council for it. And I led about 30 (policy coordination committees or) PCCs on the National Security Council. That was a huge accomplishment for me. If my career ended there, I think it would’ve been the high point, regardless of whatever happens.
(Host)
Right.
(Perez-Cruz)
Because I felt as though I made it, but not from a point of pride in a bad way, but pride in the fact that everything my parents have given me, everything my family and my mentors have given me in teaching me the right way to do things got me to that point where I was sitting next to a assistant secretary and writing the undersecretary’s comments for Congress when, at some point in my life, I was the English-second-language kid who was barely making it through school at the same level as the other kids in the US.
(Host)
Wow. Let’s talk about that a little bit more. Would you be willing to share a pivotal moment in your life that maybe changed your trajectory or your path in a good way?
(Perez-Cruz)
I think the pivotal moment, I can say, was probably my freshman year of high school. I decided—and it was in my own mind—“OK, I am good enough to compete with the kids who are in honors classes, the kids that have already been told that they will be successful, that they will go to college.” And at that point, I had to go ask my dad to come in and ask the vice principal for permission to be in honors program because I wasn’t selected for it. I had wanted to be in it. They still had me in with the kids that were all English second language. And I looked around and I said, “OK, out of this group. I don’t want to do vocational. I don’t want to do any of that stuff. I want to lead.”
That led me to being in a classroom with a group of students who were achieving at a very high level. I looked around, and all of their parents had gone to college. I am the first person in my family to graduate college. And my dad, when he came to the US—because we’re Americans, as . . .
(Host)
Right, right.
(Perez-Cruz)
We’re born citizens in Puerto Rico—that’s how we learned English. That’s how I learned English was my dad joined the Army. And none of my grandparents were high-school graduates. So to me, being in that point where I was in an honors program and I knew that I was on the debate team, I knew that I was getting good grades—I knew that regardless of what happened, I would go college and I would be able to lead people. And I always wanted to be in the military because my dad’s a retired sergeant major. He was . . . at the time, I think he was a first sergeant, when I was in high school. But that was, I think, the pivotal moment where I went from being the English second language to just being an honors student in the classroom.
(Host)
Did something happen that made you realize you needed to ask to . . .
(Perez-Cruz)
Yeah, I . . .
(Host)
Move out?
(Perez-Cruz)
So, I think what happened was I was in a freshman English class. And I looked around, and it was too easy for me. A lot of the people in that classroom didn’t care. Part of it is, uh, the school I went to. I went to high school for three years in El Paso, which is . . . it’s a great place to thrive, but it was a rough, inner-city school. And out of all the kids, I was probably the only one who wanted—in that particular setting, not in the school—that wanted to leave there, not be what we were predetermined to be.
(Host)
What are you currently working on that you’re really excited about?
(Perez-Cruz)
So what I’m working on that I’m really excited about right now is over the last two months, I’ve started a national judo club. And I am a member of the United States Judo Association. I’m on one of their committees. And I started this club with a friend of mine, Ike Henderson, who’s at the Pentagon. And what we’re doing is we’re helping other soldiers and veterans in the community who want to continue to do judo to help them get promoted. Because when you move multiple places, you don’t have the same instructors. So what we’re trying to do is build a cohort of instructors who can help the younger and newer veterans and soldiers achieve what they want to achieve, which should be trying to get them to become black belts, compete.
But, more importantly, there’s another organization that we’re trying to link in with, which are Veterans Jiu-Jitsu. With all the issues that we have with suicide and not belonging by veterans, what we do as a dojo is try to bring people together all over the US to have workouts together. Because the one thing that you can point at and say, “What’s missing from these people’s lives when they leave the military?” is their tribe. And we create a tribe. The tribe is you wear a uniform, you show up. There’s a hierarchy and respect, and then you get rank when you achieve things.
And then you have physical fitness, physical training in a combat sport—which, a lot of it, if you look at what the definition of martial arts, it’s the same thing as what we do. It’s a written form of combat, except for you get to tap out; you get to shake hands; and, then, you get to hang out with your friends, which is what a lot of our soldiers are missing. Then they’re even missing it in certain units, so this is something that I’m really proud about what I’m doing.
(Host)
That’s a pretty incredible effort. Where can people go to learn more about this and find out about it and other things that you might be doing?
(Perez-Cruz)
@roninafcjudo. https://www.instagram.com/roninafcjudo/ That’s our Instagram. And I’ll give you the link for that if you want to post it, but . . .
(Host)
I would love it.
(Perez-Cruz)
I’m posting every day about it. And then I’m posting it on my LinkedIn. I am also gonna work on putting together a paper about it and a podcast. And I’m trying to do it through the (US Army War College) War Room. So, that’ll follow up here soon. But we’re trying to get some folks out there to understand; learn about it; and, then, be able to participate. Because it’s really about participation.
(Host)
I’m glad we get to be a small part of that effort. Do you have any final thoughts or anything?
(Perez-Cruz)
One of the things I always talk about for diversity, right?
(Host)
Sure.
(Perez-Cruz)
So we always talk diversity, and almost every year for the last, probably, five to seven years, I’ve been asked to speak about Hispanic heritage. What I always tell people: It’s not about Hispanic heritage or Black heritage or Asian heritage; it’s about mentoring. And if we’re waiting for someone who looks like us to mentor us, then you’ll be waiting a while. And going back to my first statement, there are not a lot of people that look like me who are in the Army who are senior leaders. I think there’s only three, if not four, general officers that are Hispanic in the entire Army. So, what does it take? It’s gonna take people who don’t look like me to mentor me. And that’s actually why I’m here, because plenty of folks who are general officers or colonels who don’t look like me, didn’t come from where I came from but saw something in me that was like them. So for everyone out there who’s a leader, you’ve got to look for someone who’s like you but doesn’t have to be from the same place, doesn’t even have to have your same skin tone and/or language. They have to have a trait like you, and you have to find them to mentor them.
(Host)
What a wonderful message to end with. Thank you so much. I enjoyed this a lot, and I just appreciate your time.
(Perez-Cruz)
Thank you for having me on. Appreciate it.
(Host)
Absolutely.
The US Army War College celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15th to October 15th. This year, to observe the occasion, the US Army War College Press recorded a series of interviews showcasing War College leadership, faculty, staff, and students. Listen in to hear their insights, anecdotes, and more. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US Government.