Cleola M. Davis is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina where she attended public school and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She was commissioned an Army officer through the ROTC program at North Carolina A&T State University where she was a distinguished military graduate and the 1982 recipient of the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award.

She entered active duty in the Ordnance Corps, focused on equipment maintenance and management. Ms. Davis became a certified multifunctional logistician, expanding her technical competencies into the fields of supply and transportation.

Over twenty-two years of military service, she held numerous staff and leadership positions, including command during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Ms. Davis retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after receiving numerous medals and awards, the highest of which is the Bronze Star for meritorious service in a combat zone, and Meritorious Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters.

Post military, she worked as a senior logistics analyst at Army Materiel Command in Northern Virginia and in several logistics positions at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In 2015, she received the state of North Carolina’s Woman of the Year Award, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 2016, she served as special assistant to the president of Barber-Scotia College, Concord, North Carolina.
She currently serves as on the NC NAACP Chairman of Military and Veteran Affairs, forced on equal justice in distribution of veteran benefits and services.
She is the author of her memoir, Forged in Battle: African American Officers Serving in the United States Army, which was published, September 1, 2022. She is the owner of the company Forged in Battle, LLC, and the President and CEO of Forged in Battle Foundation, a non-profit that awards monetary grants to black owned, veteran, small businesses in the state of North Carolina.