From No Electricity to Three Stars: A Q&A With Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg
On April 27, Fort Lee was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams, in honor of Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams, two barrier-breaking Black Army officers who excelled in sustainment operations.
For Gregg, it was meaningful recognition that brought his professional journey full circle: As a young officer, he served at the post beginning in 1950. When he arrived, the Army was still segregated, although that would change within months.
Gregg, who turned 95 less than two weeks after the fort was renamed, holds the distinction of being the only living person in modern Army history to have an installation named after him. In 2022, he received a call from U.S. Rep. Donald McEachin informing him of the honor.
“The news was very pleasant, but it did not take me completely by surprise because I was aware that my name had been recommended by the congressman,” Gregg said in a phone interview.
“He had been joined by other organizations and individuals. But I was also aware that there were 34,000 nominations for the nine Army posts under consideration for renaming. When I learned that my name had been selected along with Lt. Col. Adams, I was very, very pleased.”
“At the same time, I recognized that it imposed upon me some additional responsibilities. In a significant way, I not only represented Arthur Gregg,” he continued. “But I also represented a major installation in our military establishment. I take that responsibility willingly and with great pride.”
Gregg, who enlisted in 1946, was the first African American to reach the rank of lieutenant general in the Army. He earned a Meritorious Unit Citation for commanding one of the largest battalions in Vietnam in 1966, becoming a general officer in 1972. He also is an Army & Air Force Exchange Service family member—he was commander of the European Exchange Service from 1972 to 1975.
Gregg sat down with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service for a nearly hourlong phone interview. This is an edited version of that conversation.
What challenges did you face as an officer at Fort Lee in the early ’50s?
I arrived at Fort Lee in the middle of May 1950. It was then a completely segregated post. I was assigned to an all-Black battalion. Black officers were not allowed into the officers club. Family housing was completely separate. Fort Lee was still a part of the old, segregated Army. Although President Truman’s executive order to integrate the armed forces was signed in 1948, when I arrived at Fort Lee in May of 1950, nothing had changed. And that was true for our Army generally.
The good news is that things began to change rapidly during the second half of 1950. On a personal basis, I was assigned in late August to the Basic Officers Course at Fort Lee. There were about 125 officers in my class, and we were completely integrated. About 10 of those officers were Black, the others weren’t, and we got along great together. It was a great learning experience for all of us.
You were in your early 20s then—how much thought did you give to Fort Lee being named for a Confederate general?
I was not inspired. I was aware of General Lee’s history, which included the time that he was a distinguished Cadet at the Military Academy at West Point and had a reputation of being a great officer who served our country well. But when the country needed him most, he resigned his commission and joined the enemy forces. That’s a record and an image that should not be honored by naming a military base after him.
You grew up in a home without indoor plumbing or electricity. What was it like living without those conveniences?
My father was a great provider, and he happened to be very skilled at carpentry. So we had a great home there with a kitchen, bedrooms, living room, dining room. But we had no electricity or running water. It was a challenge, but in those days, it was the norm and you learned to live with it.
For water, we had a pump in our front yard, and members of the family would take buckets and go to the pump and draw water for all of our needs—for cooking, for sanitation and for washing clothes. That pump gave a generous amount of water, and we had no difficulty getting enough water. And we’d transport it to where it was needed. For sanitation, we had an outhouse maybe 200 feet from the main house.
We did have a radio, and the radio was battery-operated. For lighting, we had lamps powered by kerosene. We’d put kerosene in them, and insert a wicker, which was a small piece of cloth, into the kerosene, and light it. It provided a reasonable amount of light.
It was a typical country setting with the convenience you would expect to find in a country home without running water or electricity.
You grew up in a large family—there must have been a lot of teamwork involved in the chores.
We all took it as a part of our responsibility. In most cases, we did things without being asked. It was just a part of our routine. We had animals fenced in just adjacent to our house, and we would lead the animals to the pump area, where they could get water.
How much did your parents and siblings help you grow into the man you became?
They were a powerful influence. My parents and my older siblings taught me the value of hard work and respect for others, and that became a part of who I became. Hopefully, I’ve retained those values throughout my life. I had great parents and great siblings.
My dad was not only a good carpenter, but he could repair anything. I had none of those skills.
You were still very young when your mother passed away and you moved to Newport News. What was your impression of the city?
I enjoyed living in the city. Walking out of my house on a paved walkway and a paved street. Being able to walk to school in about 30 minutes. Being able to go in to the commercial area of the city in about 10 to 15 minutes by just walking. I enjoyed that.
I enjoyed my brother’s home, where we did have electricity, running water. It was easy to adjust to that new lifestyle and to live in a city that provided all the conveniences of a modern town.
It contributed to my decision to join the military. I was there 1941 to 1945, and there were lots of Soldiers coming into the town. We had military bases in and near Newport News, and off-duty Soldiers came into the town. I was impressed by their uniforms, and I was impressed by their manly conduct. It increased my desire to be a Soldier.
We also were able to go to the movies on occasion. Typically in that time, there was a short, 5-minute clip depicting the war effort in Europe and the Pacific. That also inspired me to join the military.
I also had a personal situation—in January 1946, I had just completed a six-month course at the Chicago College of Medical Technology and earned a certificate as a medical laboratory technician, and I needed experience. And I assumed that I could get that experience in the Army. I was also aware that I was just six months away from my 18th birthday, at which time I would be required to register for the draft. I assumed that I would have a better choice of assignments if I were to enlist.
So in January 1946, I raised my right hand and joined the Army. I’ve never regretted that.
Your first assignment was West Germany when you were still 17 years old. This is just a few months after VE-Day. What was it like being there?
My first assignment was the 3511th Quartermaster Transportation Truck Company. We had taken over a very nice hotel in Bad Staffelstein, which is about 20 miles from Bamberg. It provided great quarters for us, so the accommodations were good. We were well-received by the people in the town, and we had a great mission of providing truck transportation in support of the Army units in that area.
But there was devastation everywhere. Buildings were destroyed or partially destroyed. Big craters in the roadways. Bridges destroyed. The country was faced with the major, major job of rebuilding the infrastructure. More immediately, it was a struggle for most people to find housing for their families, to obtain enough food to sustain them, and not only the German population but many, many displaced people from other European countries were also in Germany. Housing those people and providing them with food and water was a challenge.
That remained somewhat the case until about January 1948, when there was a currency reform in Germany, and the German mark became more valuable and a powerful incentive for people to rebuild the country. From January 1948 forward, there was a major change in the country.
You found a lifetime mission in logistics. What made you such a good fit for that?
I was disappointed when I didn’t get an assignment as a medical laboratory technician, but I got into logistics and I found a home there. When you think of logistics, it encompasses determining what our Army will need, what our Soldiers will need in the years ahead. Purchasing uniforms, weapons, transportation and all of the things our Soldiers need to fight and survive our Nation’s battles. I found it, from the company level on up to the national level, to be a very challenging and satisfying assignment. I found a home in logistics and I’ve never regretted being a logistician. It provided great opportunities, great challenges and a great career for me.
You’ve said that your most rewarding assignment was commanding a battalion in Vietnam in 1966-’67. What was so rewarding about the assignment?
When I tell people that my greatest assignment was commanding a battalion in a combat area, they look at me with disbelief. But in late 1965, I was the assistant secretary to the General Staff in Washington. It was a great assignment, and I was promoted to lieutenant colonel in December of 1965. Almost immediately, I received orders to command the 96th Supply and Services Battalion, which was located at Fort Riley, Kansas.
I reported to the 96th in January 1966, and the battalion had already been alerted for deployment to Vietnam in April. So we had from January to April to get the battalion ready for deployment. Unfortunately, the battalion was in C-4 condition across the board. C-4 means “not ready.” We didn’t have the people, we didn’t have the equipment and we didn’t have the necessary training for a battalion to be deployed.
So I gathered with my staff and commanders and we started plotting out what we needed to do to get ready by April. In early March of 1966, an inspection team from Washington came out to assess our readiness for deployment. They quickly determined what we already knew: We were not ready. So we were given a choice: We could deploy as scheduled and the Army would assist us in getting the people we needed; or we could delay deployment. It was an easy choice for me. We wanted to deploy on schedule. So with the Army’s help, we were able to get most of the equipment and all of the people that we needed to meet our deployment schedule.
At that time, most people deployed to Vietnam by air. We were deployed by ship, and that gave us an additional two weeks to train our battalion and plan our actions in Vietnam. We were initially scheduled to go to Bien Tao, which is near Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh City]. But en route, our orders were changed, sending us to Cam Ranh Bay. Cam Ranh Bay was a huge area but just beginning to build a logistics base there.
When we arrived with a battalion of a headquarters detachment and two companies, 700 officers and men, with a task of developing that base, we found, already on the ground and working, two companies and two detachments that were organized in a provisional battalion. We deactivated the provisional battalion and attached those companies to our battalion, which immediately increased our size from a battalion of 700 people to 1,400 people.
Over the next few months, we continued to increase in size. The Army at that time was deploying companies and detachments to Vietnam without battalion headquarters. So as those companies and detachments arrived at Cam Ranh Bay, we attached them to our battalion. We became a battalion of 18 companies and eight detachments, with 3,600 officers and men. It was probably the biggest battalion in the United States Army at that time, which gave us the capability of really developing a logistics base and supplying our forces throughout Vietnam. We had two airborne companies, and we were able to deliver by air when needed throughout the country.
But most important was the quality of the men and the officers of that battalion. It was just unbelievable. They were very responsible, they worked hard and we got along extremely well. We built a great logistics base and developed close relationships. I still get calls from some of my people from that battalion from 1966 to ’67. It was a great experience for me, I believe we performed extremely well, and I always look back on those days at the high point of my career.
The military who served in Vietnam often did not get the homecoming that they deserved. How were you welcomed home?
I didn’t experience any friction when I returned, but I was not exposed, perhaps, to places where I normally would have been made to feel unwelcome. I came home in April of 1967, and rejoined my family, which was here in Woodbridge, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. I had been assigned as a student to the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. So I was preoccupied with moving my wife and two daughters to Carlisle Barracks. For the next year, when returning service members were experiencing unhealthy welcomes throughout the country, I had the protective environment of being at Carlisle Barracks.
From 1972 to 1975, you were commander of the European Exchange System. What were the highlights of your command?
We organized and built great shopping centers in all of the European countries where we had personnel stationed: Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Turkey and Greece. We wanted to be sure that our military personnel and their dependents were able to go and find the goods and services they needed to satisfy their needs. And that they could visit a fine barber shop or they could visit a nice cafeteria. That was our mission, and I think we did a reasonably good job of satisfying that mission.
The time of my command was a period in which there were major changes in the value of the dollar vs. almost all of the European currencies, especially in Germany, where the value of the dollar became lower and we could not buy as many things on the local economy as we used to. Before 1972, many of our Soldiers and their families found it rather easy to shop on the local economy for many of the things that they needed. After 1972, because of the change in the value of the currency, that became less so.
So it imposed upon us the responsibility and the opportunity to greatly expand the breadth of the goods and services we provided. We took that seriously and greatly expanded, for example, phonograph records. You know, when a young Soldier heard the latest hit on the radio, he or she wanted to go out to the PX and buy that record. So we developed a system of flying records over to Europe and into what we called Sound Centers so that a young Soldier and his family could have the latest hit within weeks and not months.
We also expanded the clothing, especially women’s clothing that we made available at our shopping centers. And sewing was a very popular thing during that period, so we organized sewing centers in major shopping centers so that dependents, primarily, could go there and find the things they needed to make clothing at home.
Because of changes in communication and accounting, we were able to manage inventory better. Inventories cost money, so we wanted to streamline the system of moving merchandise to the store and to the customer as rapidly as possible. But we were still operating huge depots in each of the major countries. We did not close those depots, but we learned to bypass them with most items of high-dollar value, like clothing, jewelry and records, and use those depots primarily for items of low-dollar value and high bulk. Bypassing the depots became a focus of the command in order to reduce our investment in inventories and bring merchandise more rapidly to the customer.
It was a great time to be the commander of EES. We had only 17 military in the organization, but we had some outstanding civilians, and many of them had been with the Exchange system for many years and they performed outstandingly well.
You had teenage daughters at that time. Did they take advantage of all this?
Yes! When I was commander, my older daughter was in the last part of her senior year. She graduated from Munich American High School. My younger daughter was just beginning. So they were really the be-boppers, and music was important to them.
Your wife participated in a lot of morale-building activities. How important was the role she played?
I had a great wife. And she became a great Army wife. At each installation, she became involved with various community groups, ladies clubs, German-American clubs. We had a great German-American Club in Munich, where the Exchange headquarters was located. She made quite a contribution to each of the communities we served—especially what is now Fort Gregg-Adams.
We spent a lot of time there, and she became well-known and very engaged in the community. She was also the co-author of the book Fort Lee in Transition, and that book is still well-used at the installation. I think it’s in one of the basic officer’s quarters and available for students to read. And the Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee honored my late wife for her contributions to the community.
We talked about segregation early in your Army career. What still needs to improve?
The Army has done a great job of integrating itself and influencing the integration of our larger society. When I entered the Army in 1946, we had two armies—one Black and one white. And we lost some of the potential of those two armies because we did not have the ability to move people and to utilize them in the most effective way.
But in late 1950, we integrated our Army, and I can tell you, it went more smoothly than most of us imagined it would. So we became one Army and a better Army.
I also believe that the integration of the Armed Forces influenced the integration of our larger society. As a result, we are a better military force and a better society than we were when we were segregated.
We must always remain alert for opportunities to impact the togetherness of our Soldiers and our civilians. There are places we need to be careful about. As an example, the Old Guard at Fort Myer is largely a ceremonial organization. We perform at retirement ceremonies and promotion ceremonies. We have dignitaries visiting the Capitol. It’s viewed as one of the Army’s best. And I think when people look at members of the Old Guard, it’s important that it looks like our Army and our society—a mixture of races and quality performance
In our service schools, I think it’s important for students to see instructors and staff looking like the overall composition of our Army and our larger society. We have to be careful. We need to make a conscious effort to make the staffs of those schools, which are so important to our military, look like our Army and our larger society.
What do you treasure the most about your time in the military?
I must say that I enjoyed my 35½ years in the Army. It was a great experience for me and for my family. If I had the opportunity to do it over again, I would gladly raise my hand and repeat those years. But I’m 95 years old, and that time has passed.
I enjoyed my work; I enjoyed the challenge; but most of all, I enjoyed the people. The men and the women that I served with. Most of them were men because that was before women were widely accepted in the Army, as we see today. That’s an acceptance and a change that I think is healthy for our Army and certainly healthy for our larger society. Women are doing a great job in our Army. The G-4 of the Army is a woman and she’s the second female G-4 of the Army.
The thing that I value most, though, is the long-term relationships that you develop, and many of those relationships continue today. I still get an occasional telephone call from the members of the 96th Battalion that I served with back in 1966 and ’67. I feel that I’ve had a good career and a good life. I’m a happy Soldier.
Thank you for the story of General Gregg and his service in the Army. I served in the Army for 8 years (1958-1966) before switching over to the Air Force. Reading about the leaders in the military has always been a favorite passion for me.
Thanks, Mr. Clark, and thank you for you service.
Vr,
Robert Philpot
The Exchange Post
Thank you Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams. I honor your contributions to our country! There is so much history here; I can only imagine sitting and hearing your stories.