Julia Compton Moore

Julia Compton Moore (February 10, 1929 – April 18, 2004) was the wife of Hal Moore, a United States Army officer.

Her efforts and complaints in the aftermath of the Battle of Ia Drang prompted the U.S. Army to set up survivor support networks and casualty notification teams consisting of uniformed officers, which are still in use.

Fort Moore was renamed in her and LTG Hal Moore's honor.

Compton was born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the only child of future U.S. Army colonel Louis J. Compton and Elizabeth Boon Compton.

Julie would grow up as an "Army brat" and experience numerous relocations as the family followed Colonel Compton.

The army in the 1930s was very formal, and Julie recalled her parents telling her they had to be ready to formally receive visitors each evening.

Louis and Elizabeth would lay out their formal clothes on the bed and quickly change into them if a visitor arrived.

Following the assignment in the Philippines, the family was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland; Washington, D.C.; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and with their final tour of duty at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Colonel Compton commanded the Army Field Forces Board #1.

Julie's future husband, Hal Moore, was a parachute tester under his future father-in-law's command.

From the age of 12, while the family remained in Chevy Chase, Maryland, her father had multiple different assignments during World War II requiring him to serve in numerous different locations.

Upon return of her father from World War II in December 1946, the family moved to Fort Leavenworth, followed by Fort Bragg in 1948.

While World War II was her first exposure to war, she would experience it again when her husband served in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and one of her sons fought with the 82nd Airborne Division in Panama and the Persian Gulf War.

Compton was a graduate of Chevy Chase Junior College in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority, prior to her marriage.

Julie described what an "Army brat" was in a 1996 letter.

"The term 'Army Brat' does not fall into the dictionary meaning of a 'a nasty child'. Far from it. Used with warmth, its special meaning is a child born into an Army family. Army brats the world over, many of whom knew each other while growing up on various Army Posts, are constantly running into each other all their lives. They are, in themselves, a kind of 'family' - each member of which knows what it means to have lived their youth in an Army family constantly on the move and in a disciplined Army environment."From Fort Sill, the family travelled to the Fort Stotsenburg in the Philippines on the US Grant where Compton commanded a field artillery battery for 38 months.

Julie describes her experience during the Korean War in the 1996 letter: I decided the summer of '49 that Hal Moore was the man for me and chased him till he caught me.

We were married in November and first child was born 18 months later at Fort Bragg.

We moved to Fort Benning when Greg was 4 months old and Hal attended the Advanced Infantry Officers Course.

All the Bragg crowd went with us.

Toward the end of the school year Hal received the orders I had been dreading - Korean War!

I was highly pregnant with Steve and he refused to come on time.

The doctors made me drink cod liver oil in hopes of speeding him up but he finally arrived on May 4 and Hal left for Korea six weeks later in June.

I was 23 years old.

I stayed in the high heat and humidity of Columbus, Ga in a tiny tract house with no air conditioning for another 3 months by myself as my parents hadn't found a place to live yet.

I planned to move in with them in Auburn, AL. It was so awful though as there was NO NEWS of what was going on during that war.

Sometimes I would find a paragraph or two on the back page of the Opelika-Auburn Daily News paper.

If there was a big fight like Pork Chop Hill, the Atlanta paper might mention it.

Sometimes I think I was better off not knowing compared to the intensive coverage of Vietnam.

Course we didn't have TV then either.

Hal sent me a telegram wishing us all a Merry Christmas which I found in the mailbox.

I thought it was bad news and refused to open it so Dad had to do it.

You can imagine the relief.

I told him never to send me another telegram, and have always "frozen" when I see one so the debacle of the telegrams from X-Ray paralyzed me.

My two best friends in Auburn were Evie whose husband had been killed winning the Medal of Honor and Jean whose husband was a prisoner of war.

Not a happy group.

Wherever her husband was stationed, Moore served as a Brownie and Girl Scout Leader and Cub Scout Den Mother.

As the commander of the 15th Army, Colonel Compton oversaw the deployment of the unit from Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to the European theater.

His troopship, the SS Empire Javelin, was sunk in transit to France.

As a result of the discipline of the troops, all but three survived the sinking.