King was born in Clinton, North Carolina, in 1961, the eighth of twelve children. Her father was a sharecropper who grew cucumbers and tobacco.
Army career
King enlisted in the United States Army in 1980 and went to Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. After training, King's first assignment was as a postal clerk in the 139th Postal Company located in Stuttgart, Germany. She volunteered for two years of drill sergeant duty and graduated from the United States Army Drill Sergeant School. She was later assigned to 5th Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, at Fort Dix, New Jersey. She later served as the battalion's personnel sexual assault director. In 1987, King served as the administrative assistant to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army at the Pentagon. In 1988, she became the administrative assistant to the Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, or DSCA, Office of the Secretary of Defense, also at the Pentagon. In 1991, King was assigned as aid to the Senior Enlisted Advisor of the Director of the DSCA, Office of the Secretary of Defense. She served there until 1993. King left the Pentagon and was assigned to 18th Personnel Service Battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina until 1996. King then served as the First Sergeant for 19th Adjutant General Company at Camp Casey, South Korea until 1997. In 1997, King became the first female First Sergeant for Headquarters and Headquarters Company, XVIII Airborne Corps, the largest company on Fort Bragg. King held that assignment until 2001. From 2002–2005, she served as Command Sergeant Major of 3rd Battalion, 13th Infantry Regiment tasked with Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She was inducted into the Order of St Maurice, Patron Saint of the Infantry, in 2005. In 2005, King was assigned as the battalion Command Sergeant Major of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe battalion, United States Army, NATO for two years. In 2007, she was assigned as the Command Sergeant Major of 369th Adjutant General Battalion in Fort Jackson, South Carolina for another two years. In 2009, King was appointed as Commandant of the Drill Sergeant School, the first female in its history. She served as Commandant until mid-2012, and worked to improve the school's program of instruction, focusing on the fundamentals and reinforcing standards and discipline, as well as moving the School from its old barracks to a new campus on Fort Jackson in 2011. In 2011, King was suspended from her role as Commandant of the Drill Sergeant School due to an internal personnel action investigation around her command style, and was later cleared of wrongdoing. She retired from the Army effective May 31, 2013, and was awarded the Legion of Merit. Her retirement came with a $10 million dollar administrative claim of mistreatment feeling she was defamed due to bias against her as a woman, an African-American, and lack of service in a combat theater, and pushed out of the role of Commandant. When the administrative claim was not resolved in her favor, King sued the Army for racial and sexual discrimination. King has since been inducted into the Drill Sergeant Hall of Fame in 2017 as well as the National Women in Military Service to America Memorial at Arlington, Virginia.
