by Herb Boyd
As we often declare, it isn’t necessary to plumb the depths of Black history to find someone who, for any number of reasons, needs profiling. When Arthur James Gregg died last month, we sat him aside as a potential subject, but honoring him became all the more important after Trump’s desecration at the Arlington National Cemetery. Gregg, the first African American to achieve the rank of lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, will now be included among our honored dead when he interred there September 19, 2024.
Born Arthur James Gregg on May 11, 1928 in Florence, South Carolina, he was the youngest of nine children of Robert and Ethel Gregg. He enlisted in the U.S. Army almost immediately after graduating from Huntington High School in Newport News, Virginia in 1946, after World War II ended.
In the military, he served as a supply sergeant before Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Riley, Kansas. By 1950, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps. For the next 35 years, the military would be his home and occupation until retirement in 1981.
The same year, he became a second lieutenant and married Charlene S. McDaniel, a public health nurse. They shared 56 years of marriage until her death in 2006. Three years later, his first daughter, Sandra, preceded him in death.
Gregg’s rise through ranks included various commands and assignments in the U.S., South Korea, Germany, and Japan. In 1966, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and given command of the 96th Supply and Service Battalion. He led this unit, which he helped to transform into one of the largest battalions in the Army in Vietnam. Upon return, Gregg attended the Army War College and was later assigned to the European Headquarters in Germany.
During the 1970s, he held several important roles, most notably as director of logistics within the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff of Logistics at the Pentagon. In 1976, he was promoted to major general and a year later he advanced to lieutenant general, the first of his race to achieve this position.
After retirement from the military, he made an easy transition to civilian life and the private sector. He held leadership positions in various companies, beginning with Cox Cable and American Coastal Industries. Such endeavors would occupy his later years as he contributed to the corporate world, particularly serving on corporate boards. It should be noted that he earned a B.S. degree in business administration from Saint Benedict College in Atchison, Kansas, graduating summa cum laude. He was also on the executive program in national security at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Among his many military decorations were the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Army Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with two Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Meritorious Unit Citation. He was 94 in 2023 when he was honored with the renaming of Fort Lee to Fort Gregg-Adams, which he shared with Lt. Col Charity Adams, the first Black woman officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Gregg, at the time, was the only living person to have a U.S. military installation named in their honor.
Lt. Gen. Gregg died on August 22, 2024 and is survived by his daughters, Margy Steinmetz (Arno Steinmetz) of Einhausen, Germany and Alicia G. Collier of Richmond, Va. and four grandchildren. He was 15 when he converted to the Catholic faith, after being raised a Methodist. In 2023, he told The Leaven, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, that Catholicism “helped me to live my life better.”