A Soldier’s Life: A Black Woman’s Rise from Army Brat to Six Triple Eight Champion

Col. (Ret.) Cummings’s career began in Appalachian State University’s Army ROTC program, from which she was the first Black woman to receive a commission. As a young officer she experienced the early years, and pains, of the military’s gender integration. In this memoir she focuses on the resilience she learned in her career as she was assigned to positions for which she was not prepared, experienced racial and gender discrimination, lost her husband to terminal illness, and became a single mother. Cummings draws parallels between her own experiences and those of Captain Charity “Edna” Adams in leading the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion of the U.S. Women’s Army Corps during World War II. Cummings was integral to the creation of a monument to the 6888th and having the unit honored with the Congressional Gold Medal.