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Fayette woman one of first female company commanders in military

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“Cantankerous” was the word Retired Army Maj. Lenora Byrd used to describe herself.

It was that attitude, coupled with a sense of humor and upbeat nature, that powered the Fayette County woman through her 21 years of service, spanning the period when women were first allowed in the military. She joined the Women’s Army Corps on a whim, disillusioned by her limited job prospects, and arrived in the South in 1961 during segregation and civil unrest.

Byrd earned favor and promotions until she was forced to resign her commission after becoming pregnant with her daughter, Chantay, but returned to active duty after the regulation changed in 1972, integrating into the army at the cusp of its inclusion of women. She faced obstacles and discrimination which she met with moxie, and became one of the first female company commanders in the military.

“I was born too soon. Simple as that,” she said, adjusting her lanky frame, stretched out across a chair in her gazebo.

She remains wiry as she approaches 80. She is an athlete and a musician who played semi-professional softball until age 55. She still plays the bass and could still play softball, she says, if she had any reason. There aren’t many things she’s decided she’s too old for, but dwelling on the negatives is one of them.

“The good times were the times I was entertaining,” she said, referring to the bands she formed during her military service. “The bad times are too many to mention.”

She got those all out in her book, “WAC Major: Herstory,” which she published in 2007, combining her recollections with her detailed journals.

“It was like a catharsis,” she said. “I had put up with so much inequity, and it was my way of dealing with how I was treated. It was a means of ventilating.”

Early years

Byrd grew up “dirt poor,” raised in LaBelle by a single mom, Eunice Byrd, who gave birth to her as an unmarried high school senior.

“She always tells me that I was pre-educated in her womb,” Byrd wrote.

Her mom inspired her to become an athlete, but she was the only girl on her baseball team at 13, and found no opportunities as a female athlete in high school or college.

Her neighbor was a coal miner who played guitar and taught her to play bass. At 16, she was playing gigs with him and other coal miners, earning $20 for each performance to bring home to her mother.

While she had dreams of becoming a professional athlete or musician, the best job she could find after high school was housecleaning for a family in Pittsburgh.

“My ego and self-concept dropped 50 notches, but I had no other choice but to grin and bear it. I slaved and tussled to adjust to my new work environment, cleaning up after white people,” she wrote.

She quit after six months.

Her mom took out a loan so she could attend California University of Pennsylvania, and paid it back “washing and ironing clothes and cleaning white folk’s homes.”

She was “one happy Black camper” as the first in her family to attend college. She majored in biology, then switched to a teaching degree. But she knew something was missing.

Byrd wrote repeatedly in her book about her “promised land.” LaBelle didn’t cut it. She wanted adventure.

“I was strolling down the street in Brownsville one day, and I just saw the recruiting station and the ad and walked in,” she said. “A couple of weeks, and I was gone.”

She signed up as a private first class, and arrived in Alabama in January 1961.

“I didn’t know I was Black until I went down to Anniston, Ala., and saw the KKK marching down a main street,” she said. “I didn’t expect that.”

She saw segregation for the first time, and quickly realized the South was not her “promised land,” either. When she and her friends were turned away from a “whites only” drive-in movie theater, she gritted her teeth and left. Then, she decided to go back, hiding on the floor boards to sneak in.

She flourished in her early military career. She attended Advanced Individual Training (AIT) to become a medical corpsman, but was instead promoted to corporal and became the platoon sergeant.

Byrd began dating her future husband, Fred, when they were both sergeants. They got engaged, and she was sent to Officer Candidate School, becoming a second lieutenant and platoon officer. Fred planned to attend Warrant Officer School. They married in October 1964, and Fred was declined admission.

Her superiors called her into the office and rebuked her for “fraternization” with a non-commissioned officer, although they were engaged before she became an officer.

“Heck, no!” Byrd said, when asked if Fred faced any retribution, and laughed at the idea. “No way.”

Byrd received orders for France, but she learned she was pregnant and had to leave the military.

Her husband had lavish tastes, which didn’t bode well for the fiercely independent Byrd. She began supporting herself and her daughter on her own, and returned to college. She had planned to divorce him when he received orders for Vietnam. When he returned, she put her college plans on hold and moved with him to Washington, D.C. They lived together for a short time when he “became a madman to the point of physical abuse.”

She left – got a restraining order, moved on and started dating women around age 28.

“I was gay throughout the majority of my tour. It was just kept hush-hush. But even saying I was gay has nothing to do with it now, because I’m too old to even think about it. I realized that it was a mistake getting married, because I could have done so much better without. Only good thing was I have a daughter,” Byrd said.

She took classes and became a campus police officer at the University of Maryland, where she had an assignment guarding Janis Joplin. She’d never heard of her, and wasn’t impressed. Joplin drank too much Southern Comfort, and “only Black folks knew how to sing the blues,” she wrote. Byrd decided she could perform as well as Joplin, and approached one of her promoters. She landed a gig as a singer with a 10-piece band, the Renaud Junction, which performed with Diana Ross and The Jackson 5.

Music was the antithesis of military culture, Byrd said.

“To music, you can express yourself better. You feel each other,” she said.

Their manager went to Baltimore to sign an album deal, but never returned. With her plans thwarted again, she returned home, went back to college for social work and joined the Army Reserves, becoming the first woman assigned to the 430th Replacement Detachment in Hiller. With her degree completed, she became a full-time caseworker securing foster and adoptive homes for local children.

After the law about pregnant women changed, she was allowed to rejoin, but had to relinquish custody of her daughter to her mother. She planned to complete her “unfinished business” with the military, but now was seven years behind her contemporaries.

She was one of few WAC members to integrate into the Army, and chose military police as her specialty. Her time in the military was mostly smooth, she said, until she started achieving rank. She faced conflicts with some superiors and sexual harassment, which she confronted. Her superiors would recommend her for promotions and commendations she never received, she said.

In one of many incidents she described in her book, she reported to a new assignment at Aberdeen Proving Grounds only to be told she wasn’t wanted in the assigned post. She refused to sign in until she could meet with the two-star general in person more than 30 days later. In the meantime, she searched for other jobs. At their first meeting, he refused to give her the job she was assigned. Then, flanked with other high-ranking officers, he said she could have the job.

She told him, “No, thank you,” and reported to a new post she’d secured at nearby Fort Detrick.

“My mission was to retire,” Byrd said. “My mission was not to let it get too bad that I would quit.”

She retired Oct. 31, 1988.

Retirement

Byrd reentered the civilian world with a master’s degree in secondary guidance counseling, and went onto work for Spelman College in Atlanta, the country’s oldest historically Black college for women. She returned home when the program disbanded and worked for WIC in Uniontown.

When her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she bought her home and cared for her for the last 14 years of her life. She buried her mother in 2012.

Byrd continues playing the bass. She always wished she had taken professional classes, and she finally did during the pandemic, receiving instruction from a teacher in Philadelphia over Zoom. She plays in her music room, adorned with family and military photos.

She formed the Brownsville Alumni Association and the Power of Music, which secures local bands to perform at the Cast Iron Amphitheater. She works with the Brownsville American Legion on veterans community projects.

Other than that, she said, she’s retired, “sitting out here in the country, in my she-shed, and my dog.”

Her dog, Tweety Byrd, was given her nickname. Tweety twirled around the she-shed as Byrd took an occasional drag off a Virginia Slim and reflected on her time in the service, wearing camo pants and a shirt that spelled “love” with an army boot, helmet, rifles and dog tags.

“It’s me and Tweety against the world,” she said.

Byrd wrote four books, which are available for purchase on Amazon.

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