ESS Perspectives: We are honored to introduce Command Sargent Major Bernard Knight (Retired), who served in the United States Marine Corps and the United States Army for 31 years, including multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. ESS is honored to have CSM(R) Knight as our Eastern Regional Military Director. We interviewed him in October 2021.

Loyalty. Duty. Respect. Selfless service. Honor. Integrity. Personal courage. These are the Army’s seven core values. After 27 years in the Army, it’s not surprising that Command Sergeant Major Bernard (“Bernie”) Knight, Ret., exemplifies these virtues. His journey to being among the 1% of Soldiers who attain the highest enlisted rank of Command Sergeant Major started as a boy in Turner, Kansas. Being an honest and hardworking person were character traits encouraged and ingrained in him by his father.

After high school, Knight wanted to “get out of Dodge” and enlisted in the Marines. He had never been east of the Mississippi River and wanted a change of scenery. In those first years, he deployed to Okinawa and served in the Philippines, Thailand, Saipan, Hong Kong, and Guam. During that time, a squad leader took him under his wing and showed him the ropes as an infantryman. He served as a Mortarman, Machine Gunner, and USMC Sniper.

After four years as a Marine, he took a break from the military. He’d gotten married and had a child and the thought of deploying to Okinawa every 18 months for the next 20 years seemed less appealing than when he was single. However, he missed the camaraderie of the military and chose to return two years later. The Marines were not accepting prior services at that time, so he signed up with the Army. The Army also seemed family-oriented because it had more duty stations across the continental U.S. He served in the Army from 1987 to 2014, for a total of 31 years of military service.

In addition to changing branches from Marine to Army, Knight’s motivation for enlisting changed too. Several years older and with a family this time, he had begun thinking about serving his country as a career.

“You have to work and fight for your family. What better way than this?” Knight says. Accordingly, he set out to be the best Soldier. Knight’s goal was to become a First Sergeant, the most respected and knowledgeable Soldier in the company who would set the tone for discipline and standards.

“I was like a can of 7up in a case of Coke,” Knight fondly reflects on his transition from Marine to Soldier. “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” he says, while also recognizing that he had to learn new customs with the Army. In his early Army years, he would say things like, “Attention on Deck!” to which people would tease, “What are we, on ship?” Despite those differences, Knight’s glass-half-full worldview motivated him to build great morale regardless of difficulties.

Knight intended to change the entire Army from his foxhole. His vision was that if he had the best fireteam, other fireteams in the company would want to be like theirs. That standard of excellence would create a ripple effect that would travel up squads, platoons, and so on across the organization and up the entire chain of command. Knight’s hard work and positive attitude helped him become a Command Sergeant Major who advised 2-Star Generals.

Knight set the tone for his Army career early. Once on 24-hour phone duty, he noticed how run down the office looked, so he took it upon himself to clean the entire office floor to ceiling. He found a can of paint and brushes and repainted the walls. When his First Sergeant came into the office, he was so surprised that he had to make sure he’d walked in the right door.

“The First Sergeant stated, ‘You can pull duty every day.’ I wanted to make this a career at this point, so I wasn’t half-stepping. While my first tour with the Marines was about having fun – deploying, going to the beach, and going out – this was business and I wanted to do it right.”

Knight’s hard work paid off with a career of excellence. He was named Soldier of the Year for his company, battalion, and regiment. He attended ranger training, earned his Ranger Tab, and reenlisted to serve in an Airborne Long Range Surveillance Detachment. During his career, he completed 101 jumps.

“I did my best to serve the Army where they needed me at each rank or duty position and was provided with the knowledge to handle increased responsibility,” Knight says. He deployed to Desert Storm in 1990, returned to Iraq in 2006 for a 15-month combat tour, and served on a combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011, leading tens of thousands of Soldiers into battle throughout his career.

An event during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) stands out in particular to Knight that reinforced the importance of training, equipment, and preparation. During the mission, an entire unit was overcome by the enemy. “They weren’t properly trained and got captured,” he says. “We got them back, but the main point I learned from this event was to ensure every Soldier was trained on every weapon system in their patrol, even if it wasn’t their primary weapon. The machine gun or grenade launcher has to keep running. Everyone needs to be ready and able to step in.”

Knight held his Soldiers to the highest standards as a matter of safety. He explains Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFP) and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) were their most significant threats and that Soldiers couldn’t see them if they were driving with dirty windows. Thus, he made sure every patrol going outside the wire had clean windshields and that all vehicles were clean down to every last pebble. “That a piece of gravel could become a projectile if they hit an EFP or IED.” Being thoroughly prepared and adequately trained could mean the difference between life or death in a hostile environment such as Iraq.

Knight is a proponent of education. He learned from great leaders including General Officers and Command Sergeants Major. “You can learn from everybody,” he says, noting that a private taught him about his equipment. In turn, he finds being the mentor incredibly gratifying and continues to support our Soldiers through the Association of the U.S. Army.

Mentorship hit particularly close to home when Knight had the opportunity to go with his son, now an Army Drill Sergeant, on his first jump. After both completed combat deployments, father and son were stationed together in Alaska. On Knight’s last jump, he called down to his son’s unit and had him report to the Airfield. His son had no idea what was going on. Knight said to his son, “Put that parachute on, you’re jumping!” His son did not realize at the time that he would be sitting between the Commanding General and the Command Sergeant Major – his father – in a UH60 Helicopter with doors open. “We jumped in the mountains of Alaska and landed in four feet of snow,” Knight recalls. Bringing it full circle, on Knight’s 101st and final jump, his son jumped with him. It was a good day for a “Knight jump.”

He explains that in early 2000, the Army started requiring that Soldiers wear eye protection during training events and in combat which was when he was first issued ESS eye pro and several other brands. The ESS glasses became his favorites. “They looked cool, they had a great fit, and they offered protection that I could trust,” he says. “In my last deployment, we had over 400 injured and quite a few casualties. Eye protection was so important because as soon as a projectile goes off, gravel peppers your whole face. The rest of your face would be destroyed, but you’d have round, clear spots where your glasses were.”

He considers the ESS Crossbow to be an indestructible workhorse. When on patrol in a Stryker armored vehicle, he wore a headset daily for hours at a time and found that the thin temple arms in the ESS Crossbow Suppressor frame kept him from getting hot spots behind his ears. “If you had a thick temple arm on your eyewear, it would put pressure on your ears so badly that you couldn’t even touch them.”

Knight has served with a countless number of Soldiers who can see today because of ESS. As an Army leader, his goal was to save and protect as many people as he could, and he diligently made sure his Soldiers were wearing their glasses. He explains, “By wearing ESS, you can save their life and their eyesight. It’s important to them and also to their families. It’s why over half the Soldiers in the Army wear ESS, and 80% of the Marine Corps wear it.” He admits he didn’t appreciate how superior ESS’s clarity was until he visited the factory where they’re made in the U.S.A. and saw them being tested. He adds, “We need lethal warriors, but they can’t be the marksmen we need them to be if they can’t see their targets.”

“I’ve seen ESS in action where Soldiers have been blown up from stepping on an IED, and they can still see,” Knight says. “That’s pretty good. You may get injured and have a life-long disability, but it won’t be a lack of vision. I could count on ESS.” Even outside of active combat, Knight shares stories about wearing ESS in daily life. He recently ran into a retired colonel who said he still uses his ESS for eye protection when mowing his lawn or riding his motorcycle.

When asked about the significance of Veteran’s Day, Knight goes back to the core values instilled in him through the Army and says that “Respect” is the first word that comes to mind. “Our Veterans take an oath to support and defend our country against all enemies foreign and domestic and are prepared to give their lives for this country,” he says. “They have my utmost respect. We should say thank you every time we see a Veteran, but on Veteran’s Day, pick up the phone and go out of your way to thank a Veteran for their service – for being ready and on-call. Only 10% of Americans do that.”

With our most profound respect this Veteran’s Day and every day, thank YOU for your service.