MISSION FIRST: One Team, One Fight

"One Team, One Fight" is a principle Col. Jim Barren has adopted during his 27 years in the United States Army. More than a simple motto or saying, "One Team, One Fight" has become a way of life for the man who serves as the G-3, or Operations Officer, at the United States Military Academy.

"That's the mantra we kind of have for the team in the G-3 shop," Barren says. "Everybody who works here and performs, from cadets to military police to professors to people who mentor the cadets, we're all on the same team. Our endeavors are unique to our particular organization, but they all have to fit together and we all have to be mutually supportive of each other."

Barren graduated from West Point in 1989 before returning to the Academy in the summer of 2014 to begin his current position on Superintendent Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen Jr.'s staff.

Barren manages the Academy's master calendar and is responsible for the overall coordination and synchronization of all of the events that take place at West Point over the course of the year. He oversees a staff of 15 in the G-3 department.

As a cadet, Barren took strongly to the values associated with West Point and the Army, but it was only until after he started at the Academy that he could appreciate all that West Point was about.

He became the first person in his family to attend the United States Military Academy when he came to West Point in the summer of 1985 and while his family was excited for his opportunity, Barren admits to not fully knowing what a future career in the Army would entail.

"I didn't really know what the Army was when I came to West Point, but West Point helped me find my profession, because it is a team," Barren reflects. "What caused me to stay in the Army after coming to a place where I really didn't know much, were the teams. I knew what teams were. Everything you do in the Army is about teamwork.

"A big part of being a member of a team and coming here and the profession that I'm going to be in is all about being a team and being a leader. That resonated with me and motivated me in my younger years in the Army and then as I moved on, I really enjoyed being a member of this great team."

Along with leadership, values such as personal courage, selfless service and doing the right thing when no one is looking were adages Barren embraced and practiced during his years at the Academy.

"There are so many things that you never really hear or experience until you come here as an 18-year old kid," Barren says. "Things like selfless service and doing the right thing when nobody's looking, which to me is what discipline is. You never walk past something that is substandard, because if you do, then you have established a new standard that is substandard. All those little things have become second nature for me and they were instilled in me here."

Another value that stuck with Barren early in his life was teamwork. While West Point further strengthened the importance of teamwork, it was playing team sports that introduced Barren to the concept of working together to accomplish a goal.

Athletics held importance in Barren's life from a young age. Growing up in Steubenville, Ohio, he participated in a number of team sports, including football.

Barren remembers the lessons he learned from playing team sports as a kid, but specifically points to the values of working together and selflessness as having the largest impact on the direction his life would ultimately go.

"I only played team sports so the thing that I think most impressed me was the fact that one gifted person couldn't do all the work," Barren says. "My high school football coach left an indelible mark on me that if you work hard as a team, you can be successful because you are only as strong as your weakest link. Everybody has to work hard and work together. You had to have a team, with all members knowing their responsibilities, and everyone trusting each other to be successful."

Barren's football team at Steubenville High School won a state championship during his senior season before joining the Army football team a year later as a scout-team linebacker.

Even without playing in a game as a freshman, Barren continued to see the values of teamwork in action and took pride in his role of supporting his teammates from the sideline. The 1985 Army football team went 9-3 and finished the year with a 31-29 victory over Illinois in the Peach Bowl.

During spring practice at the end of his Plebe year, Barren experienced at injury that caused him to sit out for a significant portion of the spring and wasn't able to have the impact he wanted because of it.

"When the names were listed for summer ball, I was not on that list, so I was identified as one of the guys that got cut," Barren says. "I can live with that because I gave it my all.

"I do not like to refer to myself as a West Point football player as I was only a member of the team, scout team at that, for one full year," Barren continues. "But it did give me a great respect for what goes on in all of the corps squad athletics here and I know it's only become more and more demanding."

After graduating in the spring of 1989, Barren began his career as a second lieutenant in the Army's Field Artillery Branch. He served as an Executive Officer for a Field Artillery battery and was tasked with leading non-commissioned officers who were 10 or more years older.

"One thing that I always go back to that was instilled in me here is, whatever mission or task you're given, you try to become the subject matter expert on it," Barren says. "Good things come to those who work hard and extra time is put in. From that extra time, you become a subject matter expert in different endeavors and that draws respect without you having to do anything other than demonstrate that you understand what's going on, what's required and that you can take a task that's given to you and translate that and interpret that. Your expertise in your profession enables you to garner respect to lead folks. All of that ties back to different experiences I had at the Academy."

Barren worked a series of other positions as his career in the Army progressed. He served as a Brigade Fire Support Office in Kuwait and Iraq, as a Battalion Commander in Iraq and as an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Chief of Current Plans in Afghanistan, to name a few.

His current position in the G-3 department came as his first job at the Academy, and his first long-term return to his alma mater since graduating, after only making a handful of brief trips back to West Point before 2014.

When asked about what makes him most proud of serving in the Army for 27 years, Barren comes back to the values he learned at West Point during the late 1980s. For Barren, it all comes back to seeing the successes of those he's worked with and continuing to be a part of the team that has spanned his entire professional career.

"The greatest thing is being able to promote somebody, that's a thrill and an honor for me," Barren says. "Maybe I had one hundredth of one percent of an impact on something they did. As I go back over the years, the thing that makes me the proudest is seeing the success of those that I've had the privilege to lead.

"That and being a part of a team, and hopefully being able to contribute to those teams. In the Army, we are one team all the time. That's kept me going all these years and continues to keep me going."

Army West Point Athletics

MISSION FIRST: One Team, One Fight

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