By Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist, State Archives of North Carolina
Editor’s Note: Bennis M. Blue served in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in 1976, and was part of the first group of female officers to begin integrating various Army units before the WAC was disbanded in 1978. Blue was the first female minority officer of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1978, and one of the first five females officers of the 82nd Airborne. Much of this biography was based on an oral history interview conducted with Blue by the State Archives of North Carolina’s Military Collection in November 2017. The State Archives also holds her military papers, from which additional information was gathered. This is the first of a two-part blog series on the life and service of Bennis Blue.
Bennis Marie Blue was born on August 10, 1953, in Averasboro Township along Route 1, outside of the town of Dunn in Harnett County, N.C., to William Thomas and Mary Eltis Walker Blue. William Blue worked as a farmer in rural Harnett County. Mary Blue was of Native American descent on both parents side. Bennis Blue identifies as a non-tribal affiliated Native American of African American descent. Bennis’ mother died on November 6, 1957, at home due to pneumonia caused by a flu she developed around the time of her having a miscarriage. After her death, William Blue would work as a craftsman to make ends meet. He worked as a landscaper, a carpenter, and a brick mason, as he worked to raise his children.
Bennis Blue was taken with her five siblings to live with her mother’s parents — Rev. Vester and Bertha Walker — in Dunn, N.C., where Rev. Walker had begun an African American Holiness church. The Blue family moved around a lot as William Blue worked at different jobs and tried to care for his children. Bennis and her siblings would live in the homes of cousins, grandparents, and other family members for a while. Bennis Blue attended Harnett High School (which covered K-12th grades) for first grade. She would then attend Cary Elementary School in Cary, N.C., while staying with another family member. The Blue family then moved to Dunn, N.C., again.
Eventually, Bennis’ oldest sister Agnes, a 23-year old trying to find employment to make money she would send back to her family, had come to live in Raleigh, N.C. After a cousin spoke with her, Agnes Blue would rent a three-room house on Worth Street, then the African American section of the city; the house had no running water and no heat. She got the rest of the Blue children and their father to live with her in the house. Agnes Blue worked as a counter girl at the Dillon Supply Company in downtown Raleigh, and looked after the Blue children while William Blue was out working various jobs. The Blue family would travel to attend Rev. Walker’s church in Dunn on Sundays, as William Blue was a deacon there.
Bennis Blue attended the all-black Crosby-Garfield Elementary School, across from Chavis Park, when Blue was in the third grade. A neighbor who was the mother of a librarian, a school teacher, and a college professor, helped to encourage Bennis to read and learn. Bennis’ neighbors were all educated, business people, or encouraging of education. Bennis Blue ended up being in the first class that attended the African American Fred J. Carnage Junior High School in September 1965. Blue got her first job in her neighbor Mozelle Dixon Merritt’s beauty shop, where she washed dishes, swept up the floors, ran errands, and emptied the trash.
Bennis Blue’s original high school German language course achievement certificate from Fred J. Carnage Junior High School in June 1968 [from Box 1, Folder 23, Bennis M. Blue Papers, CLDW 46, Cold War Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.].
Bennis Blue would attend John W. Ligon High School, and graduated from the high school in May 1971 as the last class to attend there. She earned a National Achievement Scholarship. Despite having offers to attend MIT, Harvard, and a number of other schools, she chose to attend the historically black Virginia State College (present-day Virginia State University) in Petersburg, Virginia. Having a love of English and literature, Blue became the editor of the freshman newsletter, and eventually the editor of the student newspaper the Virginia Statesman. Having finished college in December 1974, Blue graduated from Virginia State in May 1975 as magnum cum laude.
During the semester after finishing college before her graduation, Bennis Blue joined the U.S. Army Reserve in Raleigh, N.C. Initially, she got into the Army after having fallen in love with a man in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). After the relationship ended, Blue still was enamored with the Army and the way the soldiers carried themselves. What led Blue to enlist was an aptitude test she took at the Virginia State counseling office, which showed that she had strong characteristics of a military officer. At Virginia State, there was no ROTC for women at the school, which led to her enlisting in Raleigh. She was the only female military member in her family up to that time.
Blue would become the company clerk for the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Brigade, 108th Regiment, U.S. Army Reserves, based at their Western Boulevard office in Raleigh. Blue was serving there in the civilian acquired skills program, and held the rank of Private First Class. She did her first basic training for two weeks at Fort McClellan, Alabama, from March 24 to April 4, 1975. Initially, she became the platoon commander; but was demoted the day before graduation because of racism at the time.
Blue was removed from training by her Army Reserves sergeant during their summer camp at Fort Jackson, S.C., assigned to advanced individual training (AIT) at Fort Jackson for clerk training. Bennis Blue asked her adjutant to be commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army’s Women’s Army Corps (WAC). She was discharged from the Army Reserves in order to accept an officer’s commission on April 27, 1976.
CLDW 46.B1.F3.8: Photograph of Women’s Army Corps 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (center, facing camera smiling) standing outside, wearing a bag on her shoulder, with a group of other women female officers at Fort McClellan, Alabama, during the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course in the summer of 1976 (1976).
CLDW 46.B1.F3.12: Photograph of a group of Women’s Army Corps officers, wearing full Army gear and packs, sitting on a set of field bleachers in a field outside at Fort McClellan, Alabama, during the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course in the summer of 1976. Photograph taken as the women were participating in Army training exercises. They are seen holding their hands up or appearing to be cheering. Pictured is 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (back row, right) (1976).
CLDW 46.B1.F2.15: Photograph of five African American Women’s Army Corps officers’ candidates standing outside of a building during the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course at Fort McClellan, Alabama, during some training period in the summer of 1976. Pictured are (no order) Katie Towers; Soror [spelling?] Marva McEady; Carolyn Pressley; Hattie Perkins; and 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (bottom of image, kneeling) (1976).
CLDW 46.B1.F5.4: Photograph of U.S. Women’s Army Corps officers 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (right) lying in her pitched Army tent with an unidentified fellow WAC officer, seen kneeling in the tent entrance, outside during a training exercise outside at Fort McClellan, Alabama, attending the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course in the summer of 1976 (1976).
Blue was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1976 as one of the 165 women to be commissioned as an officer that year. Blue was sent for 90-day training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, starting on May 3, 1976, as part of the WAC Officer Orientation/Officer Candidate Training Course. She finished her officers’ training program and graduated at Fort McClellan on July 16, 1976.
Photograph of a group of U.S. Women’s Army Corps officers sitting outside on a lawn in the grass volleyball court area at Fort McClellan, Alabama, being instructed on how to pitch an Army tent. The women were attending the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course in the summer of 1976 (1976).
CLDW 46.B1.F5.7: Photograph of U.S. Women’s Army Corps officer 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (right) leaning back being held up by an unidentified WAC officer sitting at a desk, in a room in the women’s barracks at Fort McClellan, Alabama. Photograph taken while the WAC officer was attending the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course in the summer of 1976 (1976).
CLDW 46.B1.F6.2: Photograph of U.S. Women’s Army Corps 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue, wearing civilian clothes, standing outside of the WAC Protestant Church at Fort McClellan, Alabama, pointing at the sign on a Sunday while she was attending the service there with fellow WAC officers. Photograph taken while Blue was attending the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course there in the summer of 1976 [circa 1976].
CLDW 46.B1.F7.1: Group photograph of 43 U.S. Women’s Army Corps officers posing outside on the bleachers at Fort McClellan, Alabama, while they were attending the WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Training Course in the summer of 1976. Pictured is 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (back row, far left) [1976].
Bennis Blue’s original WAC Officer Orientation Candidate Course graduation exercises program from July 16, 1976 [from Box 1, Folder 16, Bennis M. Blue Papers, CLDW 46, Cold War Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.].
Next, Blue would be sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, for airborne jump training with the WAC, with her choosing to go into airborne operations. She was stationed there for four weeks of training, finishing there at the end of July 1976. In her downtime, Blue and some of her WAC friends would attend church in Anderson, Alabama, on Sundays while they were stationed at Fort Benning.
CLDW 46.B1.F8.2: Photograph of U.S. Women’s Army Corps 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue, wearing her full Army jump gear and parachutes, posing in a mock airplane jump doorway while she was attending airborne jump training for women with fellow WAC officers at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the late summer and fall of 1976. On Blue’s helmet is her WAC jump training number “AW003,” with the “A” standing for “Officer,” the “W” standing for “Woman,” and the “003” standing for Blue’s number in the alphabetically-arranged jump training order at Fort Benning of the WAC officers (1976) [two of the images printed on 3M photograph paper].
Her ultimate desire was to join the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. — which to that point in 1976 was for men only. Female officers had already been added in 1978 to the 101st Airborne Division, but not in the 82nd Airborne. After Fort Benning, Bennis Blue was assigned to Fort Lee, Virginia, to training in quartermaster officer basic training, and other advanced training. She would end up serving as a logistics officer after her time at Fort Lee. She participated in a joint exercise with the U.S. Marine Corps called Solid Shield in late 1976. Blue also did helicopter jumps by strap hanging at Fort Lee during this period, in order to keep her jump status current. Blue would finish her time at Fort Lee in early January 1977.
CLDW 46.B1.F1.8: Snapshot of a group of male and female African American U.S. Army and Women’s Army Corps soldiers, posing in a classroom believed to be at Fort Lee, Virginia, attending a training class or lecture around 1976 during quartermaster officer basic training. Pictured is Women’s Army Corps 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (bottom of picture, only head visible) was attending this training [circa 1976].
CLDW 46.B1.F8.1: Official U.S. Army photograph of the U.S. Army’s 1976 Fort Lee, Virginia, Quartermaster Officer Basic Course (QMOBC) Cross Country Championship Team posing at Fort Lee on October 14, 1976. Identified officers pictured are the individual first place winner Lt. Michael Jones (front row, third from left); Randy Manner (front row, far left); and Lt. Villareal (front row, far right). Also pictured is 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (front row, fourth from left), who was attending quartermaster officer basic training and joined the cross-country team then (October 14, 1976) [Photograph by: Bob Lee, TASO Photo Branch, U.S. Army].
CLDW 46.B1.F1.10: Snapshot of U.S. Army officers and soldiers holding up their completion certificates upon graduating from Quartermaster Officer Basic Course 7T-501 at Fort Lee, Virginia, on January 14, 1977. Pictured are (left to right) 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue; Capt. Glenn Melton; Yvonne Armstrong; Reginald Lowery; Stephanie Davis; and Steve Tawbush. Photograph taken while Blue was attending quartermaster officer basic training at the time (January 14, 1977).
Blue was selected by 1st Corps Support Command (COSCOM) Gen. Elmer Pemberton to join his staff at Fort Bragg. In January 1977, she became the training officer with the Inspector General in 1st COSCOM, XVIII Airborne Corps, at Fort Bragg. She would inspect the women whom she had been the training officer for in the company, to re-train people whose job specialties were being eliminated by the Army around 1977. For this work, she received the Army Commendation Medal.
Blue also served in a Provisional Amphibious Company in 1st COSCOM that was formed on March 21, 1977, for the purpose of providing amphibious training to personnel from various 1st COSCOM units. It only existed and trained for three and a half weeks. Blue was the platoon leader for the second platoon in the temporary company during the training at U.S. Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Norfolk, Virginia. The training was completed on April 8, 1977.
CLDW 46.B1.F11.17: Photograph of members of the U.S. Army’s 259th Field Service Company, 530th Supply and Service Battalion, from Fort Bragg, N.C., seen out at an unidentified location in North Carolina with their mobile field bakery around 1977 or 1978. Pictured is the company’s commanding officer Lt. Bennis M. Blue (bottom row kneeling, middle) [circa 1977–1978].
Blue was assigned as an officer in the 259th Field Service Company, 530th Supply and Service Battalion, at Fort Bragg. She also worked as the Office in Command of a burial detail with the Graves Registration and Memorial Affairs officer with the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Corps. She began serving in that unit in the spring of 1977. In this role, 2nd Lt. Blue and her unit identified peoples’ remains from military and mass casualty incidents — such as the Jonestown cult mass suicide in 1978. She also was involved as a casualty officer in providing military funeral honors for veterans, and was responsible for handing the folded American flags to the veterans’ families.
CLDW 46.B1.F8.6: Photograph of members of a U.S. Army singing group from Fort Bragg, N.C., singing for veterans in a Veterans Administration hospital VA hospital tour in December 1977. Pictured is 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue (standing, second from right) [December 1977].
Blue participated in a Fort Bragg singing group that went around to Veterans Administration hospitals and local hospices to perform for the veterans and residents, including during a VA hospital tour in 1977. While at Fort Bragg, Blue participated in November 1978 in U.S. Marine Corps and Navy amphibious training joint, including with the Solid Shield joint exercise in November 1978. Blue would be promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant on May 1, 1978.
CLDW 46.B1.F6.8: Blurry snapshot taken by U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Bennis M. Blue of herself in the mirror in March 1978 while she was serving in 1st Corps Support Command (COSCOM) at Fort Bragg, N.C. Caption on back of photograph reads: “Me trying to take my picture in the mirror. Mar. 78” (March 1978).
The U.S. Army began asking for women to be added to the 82nd Airborne Division with the integration of the WAC into the Regular Army in 1978. In June 1978, 1st Lt. Bennis Blue would be assigned as one of the first female minority officers of the 82nd Airborne. She was technically the first female officer with the 82nd Airborne, as she arrived on June 15, 1978, early for duty and to sign in with the division.
CLDW 46.B1.F9.1: Photograph of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Roscoe Robinson Jr. (left), the African-American commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, shaking the hand of 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (right), after she had arrived early on the morning of June 15, 1978, at Fort Bragg, N.C., as the first of five female officers to join the 82nd Airborne [June 15, 1978].
A laminated clipping kept by Bennis Blue from the Army Times’ July 3, 1978, issue, with the article announcing Blue and four other female officers as the first female officers of the 82nd Airborne Division on June 15, 1978. Although Blue likes to say she was not the first female officer of the 82nd Airborne, she was the first female officer to report on the morning of June 15 — technically making her the first female officer. This article was kept for years in a picture frame with the photograph CLDW 46.B1.F9.1 [from Box 1, Folder 25, Bennis M. Blue Papers, CLDW 46, Cold War Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.].
CLDW 46.B1.F11.11: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (left), shaking hands with an unidentified officer in a command room at Fort Bragg, N.C., after she had arrived as one of the first of five female officers to join the 82nd Airborne Division in June 1978 (June 1978).
That same day, four other female officers joined Blue in the 82nd Airborne in July 1978 as the first women in the division. These women were Blue; 2nd Lt. Holly A. Hileman; Sp4 Corrine E. Cote; Sp4s Opan V. Forbes; and Pvt. (E-2) Laura L. Williams. All of the women were greeted by Maj. Gen. Roscoe Robinson Jr., the African American commanding general of the 82nd Airborne.
CLDW 46.B1.F9.4: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (left), wearing her full camouflage uniform, being prepared and instructed by her safety non-commissioned officer (NCO) for her first parachute jump as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in 1978 outside of a building at Fort Bragg, N.C. Pictured also are another NCO wearing the “physical training uniform of the day” (third from left, white outfit), and another NCO adjusting his maroon beret (1978).
CLDW 46.B1.F9.5: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (foreground, left with parachute), wearing her full camouflage uniform, suiting up and being instructed by her safety non-commissioned officer (NCO) for her first parachute jump as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in 1978 outside of a building at Fort Bragg, N.C. Blue was serving in the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), 82nd Airborne Division, at the time (1978).
CLDW 46.B1.F9.6: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (second from right), the assistant division property book officer for the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), laying on the ground at the jump zone wearing her full jump equipment and parachutes as she was preparing for her first parachute jump as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in 1978 at Fort Bragg, N.C. Pictured with her war Lt. Col. David Dunn (second from left), Blue’s commanding officer in the 182nd DMMC, and Capt. Bernard Oliphant (far right, partially out of frame), commander of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 182nd DMMC (1978).
CLDW 46.B1.F9.7: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (center), the assistant division property book officer for the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), laying on the ground at the jump zone wearing her full jump equipment and parachutes as she was preparing for her first parachute jump as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in 1978 at Fort Bragg, N.C. Pictured with her war Lt. Col. David Dunn (left), Blue’s commanding officer in the 182nd DMMC, and Capt. Bernard Oliphant (right), commander of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 182nd DMMC (1978).
CLDW 46.B1.F9.10: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (center, facing away from camera), preparing to jump on or off a platform outside during a parachute jump training exercise at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1978. Blue was serving in the 82nd Airborne Division at the time as the assistant division property book officer for the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC) (1978).
CLDW 46.B1.F9.8: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (left), the assistant division property book officer for the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), sitting on a wooden post next to her commanding officer in the 182nd DMMC Lt. Col. David Dunn (right), as they were waiting to load up on aircraft for Blue’s first parachute jump as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in 1978 at Fort Bragg, N.C. This was to be Blue’s “cherry jump,” and Dunn’s first jump in 15 years (1978).
CLDW 46.B1.F9.14: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (first row, standing at end of line in foreground) being pinned by an unidentified officer with an Army Commendation Medal during an awards formation of Army soldiers outside at Fort Bragg, N.C., in August 1978. Soldiers were being presented with awards and medals during the ceremony. Blue received the medal for her meritorious achievement as the assistant training officer assigned to the assistant chief of staff, security, operations, training and intelligence, 1st Corps Support Command, Fort Bragg, from February 21 to June 14, 1978 [August 1978].
CLDW 46.B1.F9.18: Photograph of three U.S. Army soldiers standing outside in the dark, with two of the soldiers wearing camouflage and grease paint after some sort of training exercise at Fort Bragg, N.C., around 1978. Pictured are (left to right) 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue of the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), 82nd Airborne Division; SFC Dawson; and Staff Sgt. Solea [spelling?], Blue’s field sergeant [circa 1978].
After going through jump training with the 82nd Airborne, Blue worked as the property book officer assigned with the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), 82nd Airborne Division. Despite close calls, Blue would never serve in the field of combat or duty overseas while with the 82nd Airborne. Blue continued her education while she was in the Army. While stationed at Fort Bragg in the late 1970s, she attended and graduated from Webster University’s campus attached to Fort Bragg with a master’s degree in business management.
Bennis Blue’s original 82nd Airborne Division “Prop Blast” card from Fort Bragg, N.C., dated October 27, 1978 [from Box 1, Folder 20, Bennis M. Blue Papers, CLDW 46, Cold War Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.].
CLDW 46.B1.F11.7: Photograph of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (right) standing in an office cubical at Fort Bragg, N.C., with two unidentified women and an Army soldier around late 1978. Blue was serving in the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), 82nd Airborne Division, at the time [1978].
Bennis M. Blue Papers, CLDW 46, Cold War Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.
Bennis M. Blue Interview, MilColl OH 1131, conducted on November 16, 2017, Military Veterans Oral History Collection, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, available online at https://archive.org/details/MilCollOH1131Blue.
