When faced with having to start over after the fall of G.I. Joe, Cross Country has at a loss of what to do. For a couple years he worked as a mechanic for Pep Boys, but he missed the action of a good firefight. So he contacted his local USMC recruiter and joined up. He had heard that another Joe had joined and was doing well, so this seemed like a good idea. But things were much different for him when he joined. Everyone assumed he was stupid due to his thick country accent. He was placed into an infantry unit rather than armor because they thought (regardless of his past experience) that he was far too stupid to operate such complex machinery. The other soldiers resented him, due to his glorified G.I. Joe past (which he was never shy of announcing) so it was a daily fight to prove himself. After a half dozen or so fights with fellow soldiers and as many transfers Cross Country FINALLY got to work on some tanks. Although it was as a janitor in the motor pool, Cross country got his foot in the door when a problem with a particular tank that everyone called Damien, was a simple fix that he ran into many times on the HAVOC. So, with one twist of a wrench, he had that tank running like new. After a few more times of this, he was quickly transferred to the armor division of the USMC.