A U.S. military installation in Virginia was recently renamed in honor of two pioneering Black Army officers. One of the namesakes has ties to New York’s Capital Region.
A redesignation ceremony on April 27th changed the name of Fort Lee to Fort Gregg-Adams. The post was built in 1917 and named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It serves as the headquarters of the Army’s Combined Arms Support Command and Sustainment Center of Excellence. It houses quartermaster, ordnance and transportation schools as well as the Army’s Quartermaster Museum and Women’s Museum.
One of the new namesakes is Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg. Gregg grew up on a South Carolina farm and enlisted in the Army in 1946. He completed Officer Candidate School, receiving a commission in the Quartermaster Corps. He trained and instructed at Fort Lee. Maj. Gen. Mark Simerly, commander of the Army’s Combined Arms Support Command, detailed how Gregg assumed command of a supply and services battalion out of Fort Riley in 1966.
“In Vietnam, Gregg's battalion helped expand Cam Ranh Bay into the Army's largest supply depo and a critical part of the theater logistics network. At the same time, Gregg and his team reorganized a broken tactical supply system and dramatically improved its speed and responsiveness. In 1972, the Army promoted him to Brigadier General making him the first Black quartermaster officer to achieve that rank,” Maj. Gen. Simerly said to applause. “As a general officer, Gregg distinguished himself as one of the Army's finest senior logisticians. In 1977, President Carter assigned Gregg as a director of logistics for the Joint Staff. He also approved his nomination for appointment to Lieutenant General making Arthur Gregg the first Black Army officer to achieve three-star rank. In 1979, Lieutenant General Gregg became the Army's first Black officer to serve as a Deputy Chief of Staff for logistics. And in 1981, at a ceremony held just a few hundred yards from here, General Gregg retired after more than 35 years of dedicated service to the Army and the nation.”
At the age of 94, Gregg is the only living person in modern history to have an installation named after him, according to the Army. In 1993, he was appointed to the Board of Overseers for Regents College based in Albany, New York, becoming chair in 1997. The next year, he was appointed a founding trustee and chair of the Board of Trustees of Regents College, which later became known as Excelsior University. The private school issues an award to an active duty military service member in Gregg’s honor. He served as chair of the college trustees until 2004, leaving the board in 2007. At the ceremony, Gregg thanked his family and those he encountered during his military service.
“To the officers and noncommissioned officers at my Officers Candidate School at Fort Riley, Kansas who taught me leadership and military tactics. They helped me to develop the knowledge and confidence to lead to the officers and men of the 96th Supply and Service Battalion, who developed an outstanding logistics base in Vietnam and supported our great army in 1966 and ’67. Command of that battalion was the most satisfying assignment of my Army career,” Gregg said. “I salute the staff of the Army War College and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for preparing me to operate at the senior levels of government.”
The Adams in Gregg-Adams honors Lt. Col. Charity Adams. She served in the Army from 1942 to 1946. Adams was the first African-American woman to be an officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and the commanding officer of the first battalion of African-American women to serve overseas during World War II. After the military, Adams served as a dean at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College and held other educational roles. She died in 2002. Maj. Gen. Simerly noted the racism Gregg and Adams faced during their military service.
“As a young officer, Charity Adams repeatedly took a stand against the notion of separate but equal facilities for Black and white soldiers,” Simerly said. “And she literally bet her bars when a senior officer patronized her in front of her troops. Offered the chance to lead the first Black woman's unit to deploy into harm's way, she leaped at the opportunity. During her brief but extraordinary military career, she repeatedly exceeded expectations, and to borrow her own humble words, ‘made it as a WAC [Women’s Army Corps] officer.’ As a young lieutenant, Arthur Gregg worked, trained and taught in integrated units, but he was not welcome to dine at the Fort Lee Officer's Club, or swim at the Fort Lee pool, while he and his wife lived in segregated quarters on post. Despite these slights, he chose Army life as his career. Commanding troops on Vietnam, serving in key logistical positions around the world and rising the first Black Army officer to become lieutenant general.”
The post renaming is one of several across the country after the Naming Commission was authorized by Congress to provide new names for U.S. military bases and other Department of Defense installations originally named after Confederate leaders. Fort Polk in Louisiana is being renamed Fort Johnson in honor of Sgt. Henry Johnson. A member of the Harlem Hellfighters, the Albany resident earned a Medal of Honor for his actions in World War I. Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia will be renamed Fort Walker in honor of Dr. Mary Walker. The Oswego, New York native is the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor, awarded for her actions to treat the wounded in battle and across enemy lines during the Civil War.
As for Fort Gregg-Adams, Lt. Gen. Gregg says he hopes the new name instills pride.
“I hope that this community will look with pride on the name Fort Gregg-Adams, and that the name will instill pride in every soldier entering our mighty gates,” said Gregg.
