Fort Lee, VA, where I spent most of my Army enlistment, is, on April 27th, being renamed Fort Gregg-Adams after two notable Black officers, Lieutenant-General Arthur Gregg and LtCol Charity Adams.
Gregg’s early military career, starting shortly after WW2, veered toward the Quartermaster Corps and logistical achievements when, trained as a medical lab technician, he was assigned to a post where there were no lab technician slots for Black soldiers (the Army was still segregated at that point) and ended up as supply sergeant for a Transportation company (read: truck-drivers); he remained with the Quartermaster Corps for the rest of his career.
Charity Adams was the first Black woman officer in the WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, later WAC) in WW2. She commanded the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-woman battalion sent overseas during wartime, first to England and, after V-E Day, to France, responsible for sorting and processing mail for millions of soldiers and civilian workers, as well as resolving horrendous backlogs of undelivered mail, some several years old.
I note this much about them because aspects of their careers resonate with my own military service.
Gregg because I was trained as a photo lab tech and sent to Fort Lee (Quartermaster Corps HQ), where it turned out while there was a slot in the TO for a PLT, there wasn’t any actual photo lab work to be done. I ended up spending most of my Army career as a company clerk in the truck-driving company down the street from the Signal company I was originally assigned to. (Turned out to be a much better fit for me too.)
And Adams because one of the other clerks in that truck-driving company talked me into taking the Postal Exam shortly before my enlistment ended, eventually resulting in a permanent job and 30-year career with USPS with concomitant medical insurance and eventual pension. (Thanks, dude whose name I can’t goddam remember!)
Just kinda bemused at the serendipitous commonalities.
[Final note, because it's pretty damn cool : Gregg, 94, will become the only living person in modern Army history to have a base named after him]
BONUS: Below is a picture of what I'm fairly sure is the barracks I lived in during most of my service at Fort Lee fifty years ago. If it is, my room (Company clerk got a semi-private room, but the other guy assigned to it lived off-post and only kept spare uniforms in the room. Nice for me) would have been on the first floor's closest corner. One time I accidentally locked myself out and had to remove the window screen and climb in like a burglar. Did I mention this was right across the street from Fort Lee's Military Police HQ? Amazingly, none of them noticed.
