CAPTAIN JACK ROSS USMC (Kevin Bacon), also known as SMILIN' JACK, in A Few Good Men, was a Marine Judge Advocate assigned to the Washington Navy Yard. In October of 1990 he prosecuted the case of United States Government v. Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson USMC and Pfc. Louden Downey USMC. After that he prosecuted an immediate successor case, U.S. v. Col. Nathan R. Jessup USMC and 1st Lt. Jonathan James Kendrick USMC..Born in 1958, Captain Ross combined a strong love of country with a desire for justice. As a Marine judge advocate, he regularly prosecuted Marines accused of crimes or breaches of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But as a senior judge advocate, he routinely handled the most serious felonies.Including murder. Which brought him to prosecute Dawson and Downey.Their story was as brutally simple as their crime (if crime it was) was brutal. L. Cpl. Dawson was a squad leader in Second Platoon Bravo, Rifle Security Company Windward, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On 2 August 1990, L. Cpl. Dawson fired a round from his weapon across the fenceline into Cuban territory. A member of his squad, Pfc. William T. Santiago, witnessed this. In line, apparently, with a desperate campaign to seek a transfer out of RSC Windward, Santiago laid information with the Naval Investigative Service: In exchange for my transfer, I offer to share information about an illegal fenceline shooting that occurred on the night of August 2nd. At midnight 7 September 1990, Dawson and another member of his squad, Pfc. Louden Downey, entered Santiago's barracks room, seized him, bound him hand and foot, stuffed a rag down his throat and taped it shut. An hour later Santiago was dead. Cause of death: acute pulmonary hemorrhage due to lactic acidosis. Manner of death: homicide. Marine MPs took Dawson and Downey under arrest.On Monday, 10 September, the JAG Division moved Dawson and Downey to the Yard and assigned Lt. (jg) Daniel A. Kaffee USN as lead counsel for the defense, with Lt. (jg) Sam Weinberg USN to assist. On Tuesday 11 September, Jack went to see Kaffee. He knew Kaffee personally; the two often played basketball together, a game Jack enjoyed. Jack offered twenty years; Kaffee demanded twelve. Kaffee said, They called an ambulance. Ross countered, They still killed a Marine. Then Kaffee asked, What do you know about 'Code Reds'? Ouch. Jack knew about that Code Red business. He also knew Division wanted this case to go away. Why? Because the Gitmo Marine ground forces commander, Col. Jessup, was about to be appointed Director of Operations for the National Security Council. Jessup's star, in short, was on the rise. So Division would offer him lots of leeway.So Jack said, I'll give you the twelve years. But before you go getting yourself into trouble, I think you should know: the platoon leader, Lt. Jonathan Kendrick, called a meeting of the men, and specifically ordered them not to touch Santiago. Two days later--one day after Kaffee returned from a trip to Gitmo--Kaffee waylaid Jack on the basketball court. With him was no less than the Special Counsel for Internal Affairs, Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway USN, assigned as Pfc. Downey's attorney. Kaffee said, Jack! They were given an order! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Jack took Kaffee and Galloway aside. He knew at once Galloway accused him of having guilty knowledge of the order. Kaffee, however, was still in a negotiating mode, as Jack could tell.Jack offered: charge, involuntary manslaughter. Nominal sentence, two years. Minimal time to serve with good behavior: six months.Sadly, Kaffee--or maybe Galloway--didn't take the deal. At the arraignment, they pleaded Not Guilty, this although Jack charged Dawson and Downey with the full truckload: murder, conspiracy, and conduct unbecoming.As the trial wore on, Jack had to admit: Kaffee was a better lawyer than Jack ever gave him credit for being. But Jack still felt he had a slam-dunk case. Especially with Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson USMC, the Gitmo Marine XO, gone UA. When Kaffee tried to cut into the hospital doctor, Commander Stone, Ross was ready to reiterate Stone's expert credentials. (He would recall that with a sour taste in his mouth later.)When Markinson turned up to help Kaffee, Jack warned Kaffee that if he accused either Kendrik or Jessup of a felony without sufficient cause or evidence, he'd be liable for a court-martial for unprofessional conduct. That was a word from Division, which was getting antsy.Kendrick held up--just barely--under Kaffee's hostile examination. And Pfc. Downey turned out not to have actually heard Kendrick give any such order. So it was Dawson's word against that of a lieutenant with four letters of commendation in his promotion jacket. Jack felt even more confident when Markinson committed suicide.But then Kaffee shocked him. He subpoenaed Jessup! Was he now gone absolutely loco? And in the course of that examination, Kaffee made an outrageous suggestion: that Kendrick ordered Dawson to give Santiago a Code Red, because that's what Jessup ordered Kendrick to do. And when it went sour, Jessup:1. Ordered Markinson to sign a phony transfer order.2. Doctored the tower chief's logs at the Gitmo flight line and at Andrews Air Force Base (today known as Joint Base Andrews).3. Coerced the Gitmo base hospital medical director, Commander Stone, to falsify the cause-of-death as lactic acidosis suggestive of internal poisoning. Ross was beside himself with rage, and the judge threatened to hold Kaffee in contempt. But Kaffee pressed on.And Jessup, to Ross' total shock, answered the question.In the affirmative.So when Kaffee suggested dismissing the court members and moving to an Article 39A session, Jack did not object. In the toneless way he used to quote regulations, he read Col. Jessup his rights as per the Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona. When Jessup tried physically to attack Kaffee, Jack knew Kaffee had been right all along.When the court convicted Dawson and Downey only of conduct unbecoming, and the judge sentenced them to time served and dishonorable discharge, Ross did not begrudge the outcome. He congratulated Kaffee on a brilliantly conducted case, then went out to arrest Kendrick.In the trial of U.S. v. Jessup and Kendrick, Ross remembered Dr. Stone's deceptive report and how he, Ross, had let the doctor take him in. Accordingly he did what he realized he should have done before the Dawson and Downey trial: ordered an autopsy. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology sent their best heart man to examine Santiago. And he confirmed what Dan Kaffee had suggested in court: Santiago had chronic atherosclerotic coronary artery disease With that information in hand, Ross hammered Stone at trial, pretty much as Kaffee had hammered Jessup. Ross wasn't too terribly surprised to learn that the Navy Medical Corps pulled the curtain on Stone's career after that.He and Kaffee would spar a few times more, both in a court of law and on the basketball court. But from that day forward, he regarded Kaffee with an order of magnitude greater respect than he had before. Show less «