Single Handed: Joseph M. Kress and the Long War America Refuses to Win

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Publish Date:

January 21, 2026

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Teaching Americans How to Act in Crisis

Yet Joseph M. Kress discerned early on in life, by the time he was twenty-three, that his life divided sharply between before and after: before lay a middle-class youth forged through Catholic schools, with two stern but principled parents and a moral framework of black-and-white clarity. Right and wrong were not names of abstract concepts in the Kress household; they were living expectations. His father’s discipline, the relentless work ethic of his parents, and a blanket of faith in the atmosphere created the framework to nourish responsibility, respect, and accountability. These values would, in the years yet to come, be the same that would shield and crush him.

After the funeral, there was grief. Abrupt, violent, and permanent.

His family center was ripped to shreds by the killing of his older brother, Greg. Greg was not even married for ten days when kinship and future were shredded at a single breath, with Joseph shoved into something he had not even known could be possible at such a tender age. At the young age of 23, he became the emotional and practical custodian of the family; their mom and dad were like zombies. Some decisions had to be made to what seemed like supernatural strength exhibited when not there.

Kress then began to retreat into faith; it was inward and upward. He spoke little about faith but showed faith infinitely. When the pressure was too much, he would leave the house, get in his car, and head for Presque Isle Park. And there, in solitude, the break in him was permitted. He cried until the tears ended the brink of exhaustion, and then he prayed. Thereafter, he was able to return to the position of responsibilities.

That pattern separation between private reckoning and public composure would strengthen further.

A Career Forged in Restraint

Keen on teaching rather than bragging about his qualifications, Kress came to law enforcement under a kind of self- imposed obligation, pure and simple. As a matter of fact, the demise of his brother was the day that set his life off-track as an ordinary sorrow that demanded responsibility – the shield that was once a mere tear in the night suddenly changed into a bloody bullet hole. In this way, the beginning of his career in law enforcement forever bears the subtext of a casual loss that went unnoticed. He learned to modify his initial default response, before channeling the will of his back- up officers to guide his dedication to a defense without any weak links. Disciplines are lived out in action; they always seek to be tested out more rather than scrutinized as ideas. By the side of these three wise men, Kress was instructed into those most valued strategies towards survival, far and by.

Lesson remembered, saving life.

In an early morning fire in Erie, Pennsylvania, Sergeant Jim Mack spotted flames and smoke coming from a known boarding house in the 500 block of West 18th Street. He radioed the Dispatcher for fire department support. Officer Bonnie Cramer and Kress were close by and arrived within a minute. Without hesitation, they collectively entered the building, kicking in doors to alert the residents who were all asleep.

They escorted numerous residents to safety, removing approximately 15 people from the building. No one was injured, though several were treated for smoke inhalation. Sergeant Mack, Officer Cramer, and Kress all worked for the Erie Police Department, and their quick action saved every occupant’s life.

What the Numbers Do Not Hide

However, Kress does not romanticize law enforcement in Single Handed – he dispassionately went about dismantling illusions.

For decades he saw such an addiction raping the sprawling gamut, that taken up to perfection that an animal will be with one hundred percent till the extent of its ability to live with an addiction. Men and women clueless as to capture joy life played with their veins through steel belts strung up by edicts, spent their last penny on it at the cost of going without feeding themselves. In addition, children are brought forth amidst an opiate clique that he knows could not give a damn about their day and survival – so long as the precursor is operable in life.

Worse than the addiction of the parents was the absolute contempt shown by those systems seemingly constructed to act as safeguards for the captives.

Kress apprised some fifty Cleveland-area school superintendents of children in their charge, telling them of their upcoming drug-prevention program. At this time, Ohio, home of the illustrious Realtree camouflage company, was at the top of the nation’s overdose rates. Only one of the superintendents responded.

Each addict he interviewed gave a similar narrative. It started with alcohol. One beer. A slight buzz. Then marijuana. Something went amiss. Pills. Everything intensified. Addiction was not some catastrophe. It was permission.

Kress knew the statistics already. There were fewer than eighteen thousand drug overdose deaths in 1999. As of 2022, there were well over a hundred and eleven thousand. For him, signs and crises are not invisible. They are ignored.

This disappointment is compounded by the education system, which totally lets our youth down by not educating them about the #1 thing that will destroy or determine their lives – drug and alcohol abuse.

Education That Confronts Reality

When asked to appear in a live presentation at a high school on the topic of drug prevention by a federal secret service agent, Kress didn’t shy away from the truth. He brought an incarcerated drug dealer already in cuffs and leg irons, a rehabilitated dealer, two addicts, and a local police officer. The kids leaned in; none of them turned their faces away.

Letters in varying overall quality started trickling in. Confessions, words of thanks, and tremendous fear slipped from quivering fingers. However, one student right before prom handed a school resource officer eight pot pipes and a bag of marijuana. She had given up drugs altogether.

Kress went on to produce another 106 live presentations, with presenter fees paid by him. Eventually, he created a one- hour long educational video, a nine-class curriculum, and student materials in accordance with the health class. The program is at https://www.drugawarenessusa.com.

The program is remarkably effective artificially, with a reluctance to lie.

The Book as Tribute and Warning

Single Handed is the homage of a book to the author’s brother. The book keeps up with his brother’s murder, his run-ins with “justice-seeking democracy” – erred judgment, and the sequence of events as Joe, perturbed out of his senses, started his law enforcement career. The combination of true crime, memoir, and fiction becomes intensified in the final act.

Now this end is just make-believe. It stems and well within frustration; one genius amount of effect snipers that alone, yup, for those who were sworn to protect the children, also became the same forces plotting to give them away for evil. Kress played brilliantly on spectacle. He had watched America fixate on the DC sniper for months. Fear, he knew, breeds attention. Attention, motivated by fear, commands action.

None of the alleged fictional elements in the book are either a threat or an endorsement of violence. Instead, they are offered as a critique of complacency.

Single Handed was appreciated for its raw candor and unabashed emotion by Hollywood and Readers Favorite critics. True crime freaks, memoir lovers, or anybody in search of an inner-consciousness struggle would find Single-Handed challenging against easy answers.

Loyalty Without Apology

For fifty years Mr. Kress had been flagging the same definition. Loyalty is not a word of defeat. It is loyalty to his brother. To family. To unknown strangers. To children who deserve better than incremental surrender to addiction.

He firmly disagrees with the notion that only prosecutions would attend to the crisis. Imprisonment, after all, was addressing consequences, not causes. Instead, the state he said needed to supply education, one that works. Reading this back, Kress wrote several government studies remarking how the more well-funded programs of the type of DARE failed at all to play a significant difference, though billions of dollars have been spent.

This is not working.

Mr. Kress is working on a sequel to Single Handed, hoping that with more awareness, influential figures will begin to push on the path of change, to do so smartly. He sees odds wrapped around him. Always has. And keeps at it.

A Story That Refuses to Be Quiet

Asked how his brother would feel today, Kress simply answered, “He’d say thank you. He’d be proud.”

Sharing Single-Handed is a source of comfort, not because it heals wounds but because of the hope that it may prevent anyone from becoming a victim – an offering that Kress gladly accepts.

In a nation where addiction knows no boundaries, rich or poor, famous or forgettable, his narrative extends outside the realm of the personal – it reaches into a warning America can no longer shrug off.