Recently, Watertown’s Stephanie Rose Cooper was sworn in as one of the U.S. Army’s highest ranks, in front of her parents, husband and sons at one of the most iconic spots in Boston.
When Cooper learned she would be promoted from Major to Lt. Colonel (two ranks below general) she got choose where the ceremony would take place, and she selected the home of her beloved Boston Red Sox. Brig. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, Commander U.S. Army Legal Services Agency, administered the oath during the ceremony at Fenway Park on March 24.
Cooper grew up on the westside of Watertown, and graduated from WHS in 1997. She headed to Norwich University, where she graduated as a member of the Corps of Cadets in 2001.
She was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, but delayed the start of her Army career to get a law degree from Suffolk University in 2004 (the same year the Red Sox broke their 86-year title drought). The following year she began working in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps (also known as JAG) having completed the Judge Advocate Officer’s Basic Course in 2005.
Currently, Cooper serves as the Operations Branch Chief in the Criminal Law Division of the Office of the Judge Advocate General, located in the Pentagon. Prior to that she was deployed to several locations, including: Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Hood, Texas; and Germany.
She deployed to Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, from 2011 to 2012, and to Ramadi, Iraq from 2006 to 2007. The program for her promotion notes that she returned from Iraq in time to see the Red Sox win the 2007 World Series, and the year after returning from Afghanistan the Sox also won a championship.
While in the Army, she went back to school, graduating from the Command and General Staff College in 2016, and the Judge Advocate Officer’s Graduate Course in 2013 — where she got an LL.M. with a specialty in international law.
Cooper and her husband, Maj. Jack Einhorn, have two children — Michael and Jacob. While Cooper is a Red Sox fanatic, Einhorn is a devout New York Yankees fan. The program noted: “Although the jury is still out on their baseball affiliation, both boys stayed up past bedtime to watch their very first Red Sox World Series win in 2018.”
