African Americans have a long and proud history of serving in the United States military, and defending our nation on the battlefield. At ADS, we’re proud to celebrate the accomplishments of America’s Black service members – not just during African American History Month – but all throughout the year.
They’re heroes like our own Vice President - Customer Focus, Retired Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Levi J. Wilson Sr.
Over his long and decorated 30-year career in the U.S. Marines, Levi served American Presidents at both Camp David and the U.S. Embassy in Germany, oversaw the Recruiting Command in Houston, and not only led Marines into Iraq during Desert Storm and Desert Shield, but brought them all home. Alive.
Raised by his grandmother, Levi grew up poor and only joined the Marines in 1972 as a way to pay for college. His initial plan was to serve two years, just long enough to afford the tuition at tiny Benedict College, a private, historically black college in Columbia, South Carolina. He never got there. By the time those two years were up, Levi Wilson had become a Marine Sergeant, and thanks to his hard work and perseverance, found that there was indeed something else out there for him. Just as his beloved grandmother had always promised there would be.
“I loved it,” he says of those early days in the Marines. Yet he never remembers anyone seeing him as a Black man. “In the Marines,” he says, “we were all green.”
Levi never dreamed he’d make the rank of Sergeant, let alone Sergeant Major – the ninth and highest enlisted rank in the Marine Corps. But that’s part of what makes Levi Wilson’s story so amazing. We think it’s much better to hear Levi tell his own story than hear it from us, so if you haven’t watched this video before, do yourself a favor.
We’re so proud to call you our colleague and friend, Levi! Thank you for your incredible service and leadership, to both our company … and our country.
Our site uses various cookies to improve your experience. Cookies may collect your personal information, such as IP address or device identifier, which we may share with our analytics and advertising partners. You may opt out of certain cookies if you wish, and doing so may limit some features of the site.
Cookie usage
Our site uses cookies to ensure the basic functionalities of the website and to enhance your online experience. The types of cookies this site uses are listed below.
Personal information, such as IP address or device identifier, collected from some cookies may be shared with our analytics and marketing partners. You may opt-in or opt-out of certain categories of cookies by using the opt-in/opt-out toggle below. Opting out of some categories may impact your experience on the website.
Strictly necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences.
Active
Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like remembering your preferences and settings.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website, which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Personal information obtained from these cookies may be shared with third party analytics partners.
Advertisement and Targeting cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns. Personal information obtained from these cookies may be shared with third party advertising partners.