Steve is a natural leader, from serving as a youth pastor in his college years, to joining the U.S. Army and rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, to serving for a decade in both the Oklahoma State Senate and in the U.S. House of Representatives after returning to civilian life. Prior to serving as JAARS president, Steve served as executive pastor at First Southern Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. There he provided counsel to the lead pastor, oversaw the staff of the 1,250-member church, and implemented churchwide ministries.

Steve’s faith journey began when he became a Christ follower at age 13. He believes that sensing the call to preach in high school and the call to military service are aspects of his faith journey that give him a strong, personal understanding of the power of Scripture in one’s own language. Steve and his wife, Cindy, have been married for 35 years and have five adult children, three of whom are siblings they adopted from a Hungarian orphanage.

When U.S. forces exterminated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1, 2011, the world witnessed a brilliantly fruitful example of history repeating itself; less than a decade earlier, the capture of Saddam Hussein, a triumph of military strategy in and of itself, opened the door for the more recent and essential victory in the War on Terror.

At the center of the six-month manhunt were Lt. Col. Steve Russell and his men of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. With his extensive journal notes, combat reports, and painstaking research, Russell has preserved the story as only someone who lived the experience can do. His narrative chronicles the daily successes and dead ends, and describes, blow-by-blow, the actual raids that netted Saddam, culminating in the electrifying quote heard around the globe, “We Got Him!”