Ex-prof from Missouri serving at Pentagon

Just a year ago, J.D. Crouch II was tapped Missouri's reserve deputy sheriff of the year for pulling an unconscious teen-ager from a fiery car wreck. In Springfield, he taught defense and strategic studies at Southwest Missouri State University.

But these days, Crouch is in the Pentagon as assistant secretary of defense for international security -- with a hand in the nation's war against terrorism.

Since last month's terrorist attacks, Crouch has been among those actively seeking support from former Soviet republics for the nation's anti-terrorism campaign launched Sunday, with American and British missile strikes on military targets in Afghanistan.

Crouch, 43, oversees a staff of 130 people, including four deputy assistant secretaries of defense. He also supervises a deputy undersecretary of defense responsible for technology, security and export controls.

When the hijacked plane crashed Sept. 11 into the Pentagon and two others toppled the World Trade Center's twin towers, Crouch was in Moscow meeting with Russian officials to help design a new framework for relations between Russia and the United States.

Since then, his staff says, Crouch's workdays have expanded as he meets continually with U.S. officials and his counterparts from nations helping in the campaign against terrorism. He's also on a Pentagon team examining the campaign's broad strategy, and he helped prepare Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's current trip to countries involved in the U.S. effort.

Moscow and the Pentagon are a long way from Nixa, where Crouch lived before starting his defense job in August -- or from Columbia, where Crouch spent a lot of his youth.