Post by Warren Joseph

Brigadier General (U.S. Army Ret.) Clara Adams-Ender was born on a tobacco farm in Willow Springs, North Carolina, on 11 July 1939 where her parents were sharecroppers. She graduated high school at sixteen years old and attended North Carolina A&T University. During her sophomore year of college, she discovered the Army Student Nurse Program and enlisted to fund her collegiate education. So began her lengthy, notable service in the Army. She was appointed a Second Lieutenant in 1961 upon graduating college in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She was the first woman in the U.S. Army to receive the grueling Expert Field Medical Badge. In 1987, the Army nominated Adams-Ender as the eighteenth chief of the Army Nurse Corps. Her military career culminated as Commanding General, Fort Belvoir, Virginia and Deputy Command General, U.S. Military District of Washington. She was the first African-American Nurse to complete the U.S. War College. She retired in 1993 after serving 32 years in the U.S. Army. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She later served as executive director of its Legacy Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to assisting students of modest means to complete their education and is recognized as a Living Legend from the American Academy of Nursing.