US Marine Chris Bryant stands ready to protect, to serve—and to help save the lives of his fellow military warriors
Chris Bryant is not one to seek the limelight, so it’s no surprise that he is most animated when talking about the impact others have made—like a woman named Nan, who came to a Fire-Team Tennessee suicide-prevention class through the Rocky Top Veterans Foundation (RTVF) and, less than a week later, seized an opportunity to literally save a vet who was on the brink of taking his own life.
“She’s a veteran, and her family has a history of suicide,” Bryant, the nonprofit foundation’s cofounder and president, recalls of Nan. “She took our training, and she was very quiet during the class when we did our group interactions and role-playing scenarios. I could tell it was hitting home. Only six days later, a friend called her and said, ‘I’m getting ready to kill myself.’ Nan was able to apply the tools from the class, keep him on the phone, talk him through the crisis, and get him to the help he needed.”
For Bryant—who has led RTVF since its inception in 2020 while working full-time at the Knox County Sheriff’s Office and serving in the US Army Reserves—encounters like Nan’s top his list of meaningful moments. “It’s proof that this can work,” he says, emphasizing that the suicide-prevention training is designed not only for veterans but for anyone in the community who wants to help bring hope to the hurting.
The light in Bryant’s eyes as he shares that account is but one reflection of an inner fire that has long propelled him to serve, to protect, and to inspire those around him—a fire that has burned throughout his life as a Knoxvillian, a Marine, a law-enforcement officer, and a tireless advocate of reducing the epidemic of veteran suicides.
From Lenoir City to Parris Island
Most of the veterans we have featured in these pages have moved to the Knoxville area after their service, which shows just how appealing our community is to those looking for a beautiful, friendly place to plant roots and call home.
Chris Bryant, though, is a proud lifelong East Tennessean, a graduate of Lenoir City High School (class of 1991) whose family members live in the area and also in Sweetwater and Cleveland, Tenn. With a Navy veteran father and a great uncle who served in the Army, “military life runs in the family,” he says.
That said, “I always wanted to be a Marine. I didn’t want to be stuck on a ship, and the army didn’t appeal to me as much.” So, after mostly holding down a series of service-industry jobs after high school, at age 23 he opted to enlist.
In early 1996 he reported to Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) Parris Island in South Carolina, where he endured basic training and additional instruction to become an 0331 machine-gunner, responsible for tactical use of the 7.62 mm medium machine-gun, the 50 cal. and 40mm heavy machine-gun, and their support vehicle—aka “a grunt,” as Bryant describes his initial role.
It wasn’t an easy transition from civilian life. “Age 23 doesn’t sound old until you show up at boot camp,” he quips with a laugh. “I was definitely the old man, and I felt it. I’m the even older man now.” (More about that shortly.)
Chosen for a slot in the security forces, Bryant was assigned to Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia, where he was stationed on a nuclear sub. There he was promoted and “did a lot of top-secret work. It was fun.”
After two years at Kings Bay, he returned to Parris Island as a weapons battalion instructor. Others had noticed what Bryant was discovering as well: “It was very natural and a good fit for me to teach.” He trained recruits on the firing line and in urban combat, among other disciplines that apply directly to life-and-death situations in the heat of battle.
After four years of active duty, he left the military in 2001—but the military never left him; he spent many of the ensuing years pining for its camaraderie and shared purpose.
‘I wanted to put the uniform back on’
The year prior to entering the service in 1996, Bryant had landed a role with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO). When he completed his four years in the Marines, he was welcomed back to work. His duties encompassed “patrols, narcotics, a lot of drug task-force units, addiction units, K-9, working in some warrants.” Eventually he joined the KCSO regional training academy to instruct new recruits and current officers. His tenure with the sheriff’s office is now at 23 years and counting.
As enriching as that work has been, Bryant continued to miss the military and had the itch to get back in the mix, so in 2021 (then in his upper-40s), he signed up for the Army reserves. “I wanted to put the uniform back on,” he says. “Funny thing, at first most of the young guys thought I was an undercover CID”—referring to the criminal analysts that identify threats within the Army. He wasn’t, of course, and eventually he won over many of those younger guns. “They treat me with the respect of someone with prior service,” he says—and that respect is evidenced in part by his advancement.
Since 2021, Bryant has been promoted from rank E-4 (specialist) to E-5 (sergeant), and moved from the 253rd Military Police Company (TN ARNG) in Lenoir City, now to the 252nd MP detachment out of Oneida.
“I love wearing the uniform,” he reiterates. “It’s not quite the same as the Marines, but it’s still the uniform. It represents the opportunity to do something a lot of people either can’t do or aren’t willing to do, to stand for what we believe in and do what is needed to keep it.” Serving is “a privilege, and I’m proud to do it.”
‘We love our veterans’
Another role that Bryant considers a high privilege is his leadership of the Rocky Top Veterans Foundation. The reasons he, along with his wife, Taryn, and longtime friend Eddie McCarter, launched the foundation are varied but boil down to one simple statement. “We love our veterans,” Bryant says.
As an expression of that love, RTVF started small, visiting assisted-living facilities to encourage residents, running a Sustain Valor campaign that supplied community members with about 1,500 T-shirts bearing a flag and an eagle as a symbol of support for area vets.
Since then it has developed into a direct veteran-care organization, focused on connecting Knoxville-area vets with caring people and services.
Each September, the foundation hosts the Bourbon & Bowties fundraiser to support its programs. (The most recent event was held at Skyview at Broadway Social.)
Among other opportunities for veterans, RTVF hosts an event called Pints with Patriots about twice a month. The servicemen and women “come and hang out at dinner,” Bryant says, as a way to combat the isolation that can be so deadly. “We get them out of the house and talking with other veterans, which is part of our mission: to integrate them back into society and make them feel like they belong, because they do.”
The aforementioned Fire-Team Tennessee is a key initiative in the fight to end veteran suicide; it’s designed to be “a life-saving network of community members and organizations trained to identify the warning signs, question . . . to provide assistance to veterans in crisis, and direct them to the help they need.”
In part through suicide-prevention classes, Fire-Team aims to reduce some of the 6,000 veteran suicides each year, a rate that is 1.5 times higher than civilians. And despite an increased federal investment in mental health, the numbers, sadly, continue to rise.
Bryant recalls one of those personally. “We had a veteran come through a couple years ago who very good at hiding his demons. He looked and seemed okay. I found out this past January that he had taken his life. He was like a lot of military guys, afraid to admit he was struggling.”
Preventing those kinds of tragedies, Bryant says, will require a comprehensive effort: veterans programs, medical and psychological treatment, medicine in some cases—but also regular people becoming part of the solution. “I feel like this is a community issue, and our community needs to step up and take responsibility. That’s all of us, working together.”
A gift of life-sustaining hope
One more time, Bryant emphasizes what we’ve already learned about him. “I’m not the guy who likes being put in the spotlight. I like seeing the impact. [Rocky Top Vets is] not a large organization, but we are well supported by our community members and volunteers. We have a lot of people who believe in what we’re doing, which makes me proud to be part of this thing we started. If I could get more people aware, that would be enough for me.”
As he works to increase awareness of the the foundation and thus assist more vets, Bryant is only adding to the already profound positive difference he has made in our community, even if he would deflect such an accolade and aim the credit at others who share his passion and priorities.
Regardless, it is clear that Bryant quietly, humbly embodies the spirit of the Marine motto: Semper fi, always faithful—faithfully training up fellow officers to protect and serve; faithfully equipping people in how to save a life; and faithfully recounting the inspiring stories, like Nan’s, that demonstrate what it looks like to provide life-sustaining hope to those who need no longer suffer the wounds of war in silence.
To learn more about opportunities to volunteer and bless our area’s veterans through the foundation, visit rockytopvets.org.