Bennis M. Blue: Life and Military Service after Fort Bragg (1979–2010s)

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 second of a two-part blog series on the life and service of Bennis Blue. Check out the first part of this blog series on her life, entitled “Bennis M. Blue: From Childhood to the 82nd Airborne (1953–1978)” here.

Bennis Blue was discharged from the U.S. Army in May 1979. After her commanding colonel in the 82nd Airborne passed away, Blue decided to leave the Army and return to civilian life. She went to work for General Motors (GM) at their Tonawanda, New York, engine plant, outside of Buffalo. There, she supervised the 60° V6 and 90° V6 piston rod assembly line on second shift. Blue would keep her foot in military service, joining the local U.S. Army Reserves’ unit as a supply training officer.

CLDW 46.B1.F10.10: Photograph of 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (center, red outfit), being presented with her maroon beret plaque by a commanding officer (left) during her farewell party upon leaving the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., and leaving active U.S. Army service in the spring of 1979. Blue served in the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), 82nd Airborne Division, at the time [1979].

CLDW 46.B1.F10.9: Photograph of 1st Lt. Bennis M. Blue (center, red outfit), being presented with a plaque during her farewell party upon leaving the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., and leaving active U.S. Army service in the spring of 1979. Blue served in the 182nd Division Material Management Center (DMMC), 82nd Airborne Division, at the time [1979].

An Army officer named Herbert Townes, who had been stationed at Fort Bragg and was going out with Blue, asked her to marry him while she was living in New York. To do so, she would have to quit her job at GM and move to be with him at his next duty station of Fort Meade, Maryland. The two got married in December 1979, and Bennis joined him at Fort Meade in January 1980 at their off-base residence. While still a civilian, Bennis Townes went to work for RCA Corporation. She also joined the U.S. Army National Guard in Washington, D.C., for a time during this period.

CLDW 46.B1.F11.16: Photograph of U.S. Army Col. Poole, 1st U.S. Army deputy chief of staff for logistics, shaking the hand of newly-promoted Capt. Bennis Blue Townes (center) at Fort George M. Meade, Maryland, around 1981. Pictured is Bennis Townes’ husband Capt. Herbert Townes (right), who was stationed at Fort Meade [circa 1981].

Blue’s original promotion letter to the rank of Captain while at Fort Meade, Maryland, in May 1981 [from Box 1, Folder 18, Bennis M. Blue Papers, CLDW 46, Cold War Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.].

Through a friend, Bennis learned that the Army was welcoming women and female officers actively into their ranks. In August 1980, she was called back into active duty, attending advanced quartermaster training. Townes was stationed at Fort Meade assigned to the Headquarters of the 1st Army, serving as assistant operations officer of the command logistics review team for the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics. She would be reassigned to the office of Colonel Poole in the 1st Army’s Logistics Office, as a staff officer in charge of ordering usual and unusual supplies for use by 1,700 Army Reserves units. In May 1981, Bennis B. Townes would be promoted to the rank of Captain.

Bennis Townes would be assigned with her husband to Germany in 1982. In high school, she had taken German language courses and loved the language; she was excited to be stationed there. Townes was assigned to Kaiserslautern, Germany, stationed at the Army Garrison Panzer Kaserne with the 2nd Corps; she served in the Materials Readiness Office. At the same time, Townes’ brother was stationed with the Army in Germany as well.

CLDW 46.B1.F11.13: Photograph of U.S. Army Capt. Bennis Blue Townes (left), wearing camouflage fatigues, swearing in two soldiers [believed to be Elaine and Steve Spann] in an Army office for the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 7th Support Group, at the U.S. Army’s McKee Barracks at Crailsheim, Germany. Photograph taken while Townes was serving as an officer at an unidentified military installations [believed to be in Germany] in the 1980s. Caption on back of photograph reads: “To Cpt. Townes. ‘Wishing you lots of lucks.’ ‘Don’t work so hard and ‘Be Cool’, Steve’ The Spann’s, Elaine and Steve” [circa 1980s].

CLDW 46.B1.F11.9: Photograph of U.S. Army Capt. Bennis Blue Townes (center) posing with two Army cooks Bradford (left) and Baugh (right) in the kitchen area, believed to be at the U.S. Army’s McKee Barracks at Crailsheim, Germany [1980s].

Deciding to get her company command experience out of the way, she applied for and received her commission as commanding officer of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 7th Support Group, stationed at the U.S. Army’s McKee Barracks at Crailsheim, Germany. Townes was stationed here for 18 months. By November 1983, Captain Townes was serving in the Document Processing Division, 9th Support Center (MM), in Corps Support Command.

CLDW 46.B1.F11.14: Photograph of U.S. Army Capt. Bennis Blue Townes (right) holding up a cake during a change of command ceremony with a Captain Pinner (left), at the U.S. Army’s McKee Barracks at Crailsheim, Germany, in 1986. Townes was leaving Germany to return to the United States, and handing over command of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 7th Support Group. Townes purchased the cake for Capt. Pinner, which was prepared by the cooks of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company (1986).

In 1986, Bennis B. Townes changed commands, and came back to Fort Lee, Virginia, with her son. She was on an active duty assignment at Fort Lee, serving as supporting deputy project officer for the Combat Command and Support Control Group. Then, she was assigned to her own command system with the SAMS (Standard Army Maintenance System) ITDA maintenance system. With six months of service left, a promotion review board chose not to promote Bennis from her then rank of Captain. She would leave active duty in the U.S. Army in 1989. By this time, Bennis and her husband had divorced, and she returned to her maiden name.

CLDW 46.B1.F11.15: Photograph of Capt. Bennis Blue Townes of Raleigh, N.C., sitting at her desk, using her telephone, while she was stationed as a U.S. Army officer at Fort Lee, Virginia, in 1987 (1987).

CLDW 46.B1.F12.1: Studio portrait of U.S. Army Capt. Bennis Blue Townes during the 1980s [1980s].

While in the Army, Blue had taken advantage of all of the military’s educational programs and training courses to further her education. In 1986, Blue completed courses through the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1989 after the Army, Blue attended college at North Carolina Central University, receiving her master’s degree in English and a teaching certificate in 1991.

After encouragement from a mentor at N.C. Central, she applied for ten doctorate programs and was accepted into eight of them. Before going for a doctoral degree, Blue attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania for one year on a fellowship, before her fellowship stipend was going to be cut in half. Having already been accepted and now needing another option after IUP, Blue chose to attend through a fellowship a PhD program at Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio, from 1992 through 2000. She defended her prospectus for her dissertation successfully at OSU.

In 1996, Bennis Blue was working on her PhD dissertation at Ohio State, when her sister asked her to come back home to North Carolina to help with the family. Blue successfully defended her dissertation, and received her PhD in English, with an emphasis on African American women writers. She taught at the historically black Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, N.C., while working on her dissertation at OSU. In April 2003, she became an assistant professor of English at Mount Olive College in Mount Olive, N.C., through August 2005. Blue would become an associate professor of English at her alma mater Virginia State University. She focused on the history of African American writers and literature in her classes. She remained at VSU through May 15, 2013, when an injury forced her to retire.

Bennis Blue remained in the U.S. Army Reserves through August 5, 1999, when she was honorably discharged. She had reached the rank of Major by the mid-1990s in the Reserves. At the time of this writing, Blue lives in Wake County, N.C.

You can learn more about the military service of Bennis Blue by checking out the Bennis M. Blue Papers (CLDW 46) in the Cold War Papers of the Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina. All of Blue’s military photographs, including images from her WAC photo album, are available for viewing online at the State Archives’ Flickr page here. You can also listen to a more than 2-hour oral history interview with Blue online here.

Resources

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.