Julie Moore – An Army Daughter, Wife, and Mother

Julie Moore lived every aspect of military family life, starting with her birth in an Army hospital at Fort Sill in 1929. As the daughter of a career soldier, she would experience the worried absence of her father during his WW2 deployment, which included being torpedoed on a troopship en route to France. Married into the Infantry, she managed the home front while her husband served in two brutal wars. Finally, she would experience a mother’s anxiety with sons on active duty during the invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, and the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts.

Key Points:

• Her family’s relationship with Fort Benning dates back to 1921, when her father trained his ROTC cadets there while stationed at nearby Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University)
• Contributions recognized by Alabama Senate Resolution 93 – sponsored by 35 Senators
• She is recognized for her service to Army families in the National Infantry Museum Army Family Display. The family section is named in her honor.
• Organized and led the initiative to change casualty notification procedures (telegrams given to taxis to deliver) due to the Army’s unpreparedness to manage Vietnam combat casualties. Organized and helped families of deployed.
• In the aftermath of the Ia Drang battles, she followed the taxis carrying the casualty notifications to comfort the families. Visited every family to help and attended the local funerals.
• Life-long Red Cross volunteer – even as a General Officer’s wife
• She led the family/soldier support aspect of the transition to the all-volunteer Army as noted in the Department of the Army publication, “Building A Volunteer Army: The Fort Ord Contribution.”
• The work at Fort Ord was a practical experiment in reinventing military support that would ripple across the entire Army. The initiatives implemented there served as a model for integrating family welfare directly into military readiness.
• Led programs to support Army families and soldiers; helped create the Army Community Service Organization
• Passionately involved in all aspects of Army Community service, including Officer and NCO Wives’ Clubs, Advisory Councils, Post Thrift Shops, daycare centers, and Boy and Girl Scouts
• Contributions formally recognized in Hal Moore’s OERs during his two international assignments
• She is buried in the Fort Benning cemetery along with her parents, husband, and daughter-in-law

Julie Moore’s legacy endures today. Modern military family support programs, now a vital part of DoW policy, owe much to the pioneering efforts at Fort Ord. The holistic approach adopted by the Moore’s—combining operational excellence with empathetic care—helped nurture an environment in which soldiers viewed the Army not as an impersonal institution but as a community that respected and cared for every facet of their lives. This cultural transformation was essential to sustaining a modern volunteer force, where the well-being of soldiers and their families directly influences recruitment, retention, and overall mission readiness.