Alton Marine Rises To The Ranks Of Warrant Officer: Career Shaped By Service, Sacrifice — and Riverbend Roots

ALTON — A man with Riverbend roots rises to one of the U.S. Marine Corps’ most selective ranks, earning the title of warrant officer following a months-long journey of testing, training and leadership development.

Cole Ellis, a 2012 Alton High School graduate, took his oath of office Feb. 1 at Quantico, Va., officially stepping into a role reserved for technical experts and trusted leaders across the Corps. The training was anything but ceremonial — eight weeks of tactical fieldwork, classroom instruction and long hikes under weight, followed by six weeks of advanced technical training in Virginia Beach where he finished on July 3.

“Even though I’ve stayed in shape, this course pushed me,” Ellis said.

The warrant officer program selects experienced enlisted Marines who demonstrate technical expertise, steady leadership and strong character. Candidates undergo a competitive board process, receive command endorsement and submit a personal essay explaining why they want to lead at the next level.

His path began years earlier, when he and his mother moved to Alton after she began working as a newspaper reporter.

“I enlisted to go into the Marines my junior year of high school,” he said.

One month after Ellis graduated high school he shipped off to boot camp — the first step in a military career that would span continents, languages and elite training programs. After completing Marine Corps recruit training in San Diego and the School of Infantry Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif., he was selected to complete his Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., where he took the Tagalog (Filipino) basic course before being stationed in Hawaii as a crypto linguist.

From there, he was deployed to Okinawa and other areas of Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Philippines, Guam, northern Australia and other islands.

While in Hawaii, he met a fellow marine, Carissa, and the two of them married in May 2017. Not long after Ellis applied to go back to DLI, this time to learn Chinese Mandarin.

While in Monterey, Ellis was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for an “act of off-duty heroism that demonstrated courage and quick thinking” for pulling a woman from a burning car along California Highway 1.

“I was on my way to base when I spotted the car on fire and I did what anyone else would do,” he said.

Also during his time in service, Ellis has earned the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal and the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal — each recognizing consistent performance and professionalism.

His military education includes — U.S. Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Ga.; Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School at the U.S.Navy’s training facility in Warner Springs, Calif., located in the Cleveland National Forest. He is also a certified Marine Corps martial arts instructor and completed both the Special Operations Fundamentals Course and the Multidiscipline Intelligence Operations Course.

After leaving California in September 2020 he traveled across the country for Camp LeJeune, N.C., he was promoted to staff sergeant and gunnery sergeant, the latter which he was pinned in a ceremony in a celebration on Independence Day in July 2024.

Previously Ellis applied to the U.S. Army’s Green Beret program, however the COVID-19 pandemic halted any plans for the program. He also considered switching branches and becoming an Army warrant officer, however the Marine Corps declined to release him from his contract — a decision that ultimately kept him on the perfect path for his current calling.

“I believe everything went the way that it did because I was meant to be where I am on right now,” Ellis said. “I am a Marine.”

He is currently being transferred to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., where he will serve in a new leadership role as an intelligence officer.

He and Carissa have three sons, ages, 6, 5, and 18 months. They are also expecting their daughter at the end of the month.

Ellis said although his service has taken him around the world, he remains connected to his Riverbend roots.

His mother, Cynthia M. Ellis, still lives in Alton and his father, Robert “Bob” Ellis, lives in Godfrey. His grandparents — Vern and Maryann Schaaf — live on a farm in rural Jersey County and it’s where he spent a lot of his childhood and enjoys spending his time when he does make it back to Illinois.

Ellis said although he is third generation military on his father’s side, it was his mother who set the tone for him to become a Marine, even though she was an Army veteran. She was also the one who encouraged him to become an “officer.”

“My mother planted the seed for me to enlist from the time I was about my oldest son’s age,” Ellis said. “That was how it was in our family. It was something that was always going to happen.”

His promotion to warrant officer marked more than a career milestone. It reflected the strength of a Marine shaped by service, grounded in family and supported by the values first formed in the Riverbend. Those who know him say he strives to be a godly man — one who steps up to lead, speaks out with courage, stands strong under pressure, stays humble in success and serves with a heart for something greater than himself.

“God, country and family — those are the things my life is built on,” he said. “I want to lead well, serve faithfully and stay true to the things that matter, no matter where the Marine Corps takes me.”

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