Making the cut: Longtime Fort Liberty barber to be inducted into National Hall of Fame

FORT LIBERTY —  Nestled in the back room of the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters, Travis Bell’s barbershop walls are filled with photos and autographs.

Aside from a photo of the late NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr., the photos aren’t of professional athletes, Hollywood actors and actresses or Grammy singers, but are of some of the nation’s top soldiers who have served at the former Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty.

There are photos of Bell with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who commanded the 18th Airborne Corps from 2006-2009; the 18th Airborne Corps’ first command sergeant major and World War II legend, Command Sgt. Maj. Kenneth “Rock" Merritt, who has a road on post named after him.

Bell, an Army civilian barber for more than 55 years, will be inducted into the National Barber Museum and Hall of Fame in September, the Army announced last month.

Pointing to a photo on his wall Tuesday of current 18th Airborne Corps’ commander Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, Bell said Donahue was the one who told him about the Hall of Fame induction.

“He really shook me up, and said it’s in Oklahoma,” the 84-year-old Bell said. “I never flew on a plane, but I’m looking forward to it … As a Lumbee who couldn’t cut hair, I think I’ve come a long way.”

Cutting hair

Bell said he grew up on a small dirt farm, one of 11 children, about 7 miles from Lumberton and worked several jobs as he got older.

Bell followed in the footsteps of his oldest brother, who started cutting hair and would give haircuts to family, before getting clients in 1959.

“Each family had to get a barber or somebody in the neighborhood (to cut hair),” Bell said.

One Sunday in 1966, he said, a member of his church asked him if he wanted to cut hair at then-Fort Bragg.

“I said, ‘I ain’t got no license.' He said, ‘You don’t have to have one,’ and really he was right, because half of the barbers didn’t have a license. I came up under the grandfather clause.”

Bell said the church member told him the job would be with the 18th Airborne Corps.

At that point, Bell said, he’d never been around soldiers of any rank and wasn’t familiar with military units

“He said, ‘We’ll that’s where the brass(Army officers) is at.’ I said, 'I ain’t going,' and I didn’t come,” Bell said.

Bell said that after working a job that paid $1.10 an hour, the church member told him about another opportunity on post as a barber at the E-4 club cutting hair for privates.

Bell said he felt more at ease knowing he’d be able to cut the hair of soldiers new to the Army.

Still unfamiliar with ranks, Bell said he was nervous the first time he saw a lieutenant sitting in his barber chair.

Corps barber

Bell worked at the E-4 Club, later known as the Noncommissioned Officers Club, for a little more than three months when on July 4, 1967, he was again told a barber was needed at the 18th Airborne Corps.

“It was take it or go home, and I ain’t going back to farming. I said, OK, I’d come. Nervous, Lord have mercy. Never met no general or sergeant major …Well I came over here, and you’re right in the middle of it, and I’m praying,” Bell said.

The first colonel to sit in Bell's barber's chair, Bell said, was the late Col. Arthur D. "Bull" Simons, a Special Forces legend best known for leading the Son Tay raid during an attempted rescue of American prisoners of war during the Vietnam War.

Bell said that he originally found Simmons’ appearance daunting, and thought Simmons was “a mean-looking man.”

“I was scared that if I messed this man’s hair up, I’m done,” Bell said. “Well, I made it through him, then a sergeant down the hall, he came in the barbershop and said CG wants a haircut. 'What is a CG?' ... He said, 'It’s the general. He wants a haircut.'”

The general was Lt. Gen. Robert H. York, senior commander of the 18th Airborne Corps’ and post.

Bell said York shook his hand, introduced himself and put him at ease.

Soon, York was a regular.

“He came back and said, ‘Do it like you did before,’ so that made me feel real good,” Bell said.

Since then, Bell has cut the hair of 25 Corps and post commanders, some of whom went on to become four-star generals.

Returning client

On Tuesday, Retired Gen. Dan McNeill, a former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, 18th Airborne Corps and U.S. Army Forces Command, popped into the Bell’s shop.

“There are quite a few stories up on these walls,” McNeill said, pointing to photos of Earnhardt, who visited the post; Austin; Medal of Honor recipient Fred Zabitosky; North Carolina native retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, who is a former chairman of the joint chief of staffs; retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who served as chief of staff of the Corps and later commanded Joint Special Operations Command and the U.S. war in Afghanistan; and World War II paratrooper and former 82nd Airborne Division and Corps commander Lt. Gen. Richard “Dick” Seitz.

Half a century and 23 Fort Bragg commanders later, Travis Bell still cutting hair on Fort Bragg

57 years, with faith

Bell credits his faith in God for his shop being open on post for 57 years, which he said hasn’t always been easy.

He said that about 10 years after he married his wife Eleanor in 1970, she started to have “a bad case” of arthritis, in 1980.

Not long after, he said, they learned she was pregnant, but Bell said the baby only lived a few hours.

As his wife continued to suffer from arthritis and underwent knee replacement surgery, Bell said, she became pregnant again.

Doctors told the couple the pregnancy could be terminated because of the medicine Bell’s wife was taking, he said, but they chose not to.

Bell said he prayed that the baby wouldn’t be deformed or have health issues.

Their baby girl, Melody, was born healthy, he said, and now works as an emergency room nurse.

“That’s called we believe in God. I’ve been through some stuff trying to keep this shop open,” Bell said.

He estimates that he’s cut about 900,000 soldiers, civilians and veterans’ hair during the past five decades he’s worked on post.

"All these people’s hair I cut, they had their time, and when it came time, they left, whether they retired or decided to go home," he said.

Bell candidly said that he gets “a bit depressed” at the thought of retiring in September.

“Really, I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is my role. I just love it. It’s the best job I’ve ever had meeting all kinds of people from all over the world,” he said.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fort Liberty Lumbee barber to be inducted into Hall of Fame