This Tuesday, Nov. 11, is Veterans Day—a federal holiday observed annually to honor military veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Retired U.S. Army Gen. Burwell Baxter “B.B.” Bell III, a 1969 graduate of the University of Chattanooga, commanded at every level from platoon to four-star general during his 39 years of service. His career included serving as executive officer to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and as a brigade commander under Gen. Barry McCaffrey.
Bell has donated his personal papers and recently published memoir, “Memoirs of a Nondescript Four-Star General: A Love Story,” to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library’s Special Collections.
Gen. B.B. Bell stands at the Oak Street entrance to the UTC campus (photo by Angela Foster).
Retired U.S. Army Gen. Burwell Baxter “B.B.” Bell doesn’t see his life as extraordinary. He’ll tell you he was “nondescript”—a soldier who did his job, served his country and went home.
But to anyone looking at his record, or the path that brought him from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to a four-star command, it’s clear that his story is anything but ordinary.
Bell spent nearly four decades in uniform, moving his family 33 times and serving in posts across the globe. He commanded at every level, from platoon to the Army’s senior leadership.
His career included assignments most officers only read about—executive officer to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War, brigade commander under Gen. Barry McCaffrey, and senior commands with NATO and U.S. Forces Korea.
Now, the career soldier who led American and Allied soldiers across continents has entrusted his life’s papers and memoir to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library’s Special Collections. It’s a fitting homecoming for an alum who says the University gave him his start.
“The collection consists of 37 chronologically organized boxes of my life and Katie’s life,” Bell said. “They trace my career from graduating from the University of Chattanooga, commissioning as a second lieutenant in 1969, and serving in assignments that ultimately led to my retirement as a four-star general.”
Those boxes tell a lifetime of stories. They begin in Oak Ridge and Brainerd, pass through Europe and Asia, and end in Chattanooga, where Bell and his late wife, Kathleen “Katie” Fields Bell, spent their retirement years.
Katie, his college sweetheart and “the love of my life,” died in 2023 after a long battle with an autoimmune disease that necessitated a double-lung transplant. They were married for 54 years.
Bell said the collection holds “tons of letters” they exchanged during deployments along with photographs, awards, certificates and declassified operational records.
“I would say noteworthy in the entire collection of my personal papers and memorabilia would be the personal notes that I took for Norm Schwarzkopf during the Desert Shield and Desert Storm campaigns,” he said. “That set of binders with all those personal notes is one of two that are known to exist on this planet.”
Each binder, now reviewed and cleared through the Department of Defense, represents the day-to-day record of an extraordinary period in U.S. military history—written in real time by the person sitting at the general’s right hand.
But Bell’s papers aren’t meant to tell the story of war so much as the story of his life, his marriage and the generation they represent.
“It was very meaningful to write my memoirs and put them into a book and have them published—simply to go through everything once more and remember my life as best I could and write it all down. I found that pretty healthy,” he said. “By laying my wife’s life out in a book for others to look at, it might give them some advice and counsel about how to live their lives.”
Katie Fields and B.B. Bell were married on March 29, 1969. Photo courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
Bell’s memoir, “Memoirs of a Nondescript Four-Star General: A Love Story,” spans nearly four decades of service and leadership but centers on the two people at its heart.
“These are not my memoirs; these are our memoirs,” he said. “Unfortunately, I wrote them for her because she had passed away. They were my best shot to leave her legacy of who this woman was from Brainerd, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and how important she was to our military and to its families and service members.”
His love story with Katie began on the University of Chattanooga campus. Bell came to the University with a simple goal: earn a business degree and find a steady job.
“My motivation to be in the College of Business at the University of Chattanooga was so I could get a job at the Provident Life Insurance Company,” he explained. “Most of the business graduates went and worked for Provident. That’s what you did and that’s what I was going to do.”
Gen B.B. Bell’s final military photo
In the 1960s, the University required students to take either band, physical education or ROTC. Bell couldn’t play an instrument and football during his high school years had left him banged up. So he joined ROTC—“noncommittally,” as he put it.
“You did not commit to going into the military until your junior year,” he said, “and that’s when it got serious.”
The Army offered him a scholarship. The decision, meant to help his parents with tuition, changed everything.
“If I were to accept it, then they would pay for the rest of college,” he explained. “I would have a four-year commitment and then after that, I could get out and go do whatever I wanted.”
He planned to do exactly that. He married Katie—also a University alum—shortly before his own graduation. The couple agreed that after four years in the Army, they would return to Chattanooga, where Bell would join her father, Harry Lee Fields Jr.—a successful local businessman—in the family company.
“Her daddy had told me that I couldn’t marry his daughter unless I agreed to the following terms—and those terms were that I would go to work for him when I came out of the Army,” Bell said. “And—oh, by the way—if I were going to stay in the Army, I could not marry her.
“Off my wife and I went for a four-year tour in the Army. That ended 39 years later, oddly enough, and many strange phone calls with her dad.”
The Bells moved 33 times from 1969 to 2008 and raised one son, Burwell Baxter “Buck” Bell IV, who was born while they were stationed in Germany. Buck was diagnosed as a child with cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening disease that affects the lungs and other organs. Despite the prognosis, he has defied expectations for decades.
“Buck is one of the world’s great survivors,” Bell said. “He’s incredibly smart—far beyond any intellect that I may have—and lives well with a double-lung transplant. Buck is a miracle person.”
Envelope from a letter B.B. Bell sent to his wife postmarked Jan. 13, 1970. Photo courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
Bell moved through the Army ranks quietly, often unsure if he was making an impression.
“You don’t really know if what you’re doing is satisfactory,” he said. “Everybody gets patted on the back and whatever, but you’re never really sure.”
Then came the phone call that changed his career.
In 1987, as a lieutenant colonel working in the Pentagon, his phone rang. The voice on the other end asked, “What are you doing?”
Bell hesitated.
“Who is this idiot saying, ‘What are you doing?’ You’re supposed to identify yourself,” Bell explained as he shared the story. Assuming it was a senior officer, he responded: “Sir, I am typing on my Wang.”
Before personal computers became widespread, the Army used Wang word processors for typing and document management.
The voice replied, “Well, that’s not what I meant, Bell. This is Norm Schwarzkopf. Meet me at the airport at Andrews Air Force Base tomorrow morning. We’re going to CENTCOM (United States Central Command).”
“How long will we be down there?” Bell asked.
“He said, ‘We’re going forever. You’re leaving.’ And that’s how it began.”
That phone call launched one of the most defining relationships of Bell’s military life. He served three years as Schwarzkopf’s executive officer, accompanying him through Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
“I was inside his inner circle, very close to him, with him every day on the battlefield,” Bell said. “It was a wonderful learning experience.”
He later commanded a brigade under Barry McCaffrey—“the finest warrior I’ve ever known,” Bell said—and eventually rose to lead the Army’s Armor Center, III Corps, U.S. Army Europe and NATO’s Land Component Headquarters. As a four-star, he commanded all U.S. and Allied forces in Korea.
Col. B.B. Bell, left, and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Bronze Star Awards Ceremony, May 22, 1991. Photo courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
When Bell retired in 2008, he and Katie returned to Chattanooga, bought a home, reconnected with the University and settled into a new rhythm—until life took an unexpected turn.
In 2009, Katie developed a rare autoimmune disease that was destroying her lungs. Her only chance of survival was a risky double-lung transplant.
“When she first got the diagnosis, I looked at the whole thing clinically,” Bell said. “But she’s my bride and she’s family. The emotions were stronger than any situation I ever faced in the military.”
At the time of the surgery, her life expectancy was five years. The transplant gave them 14 more years together.
After Katie’s passing in 2023, Bell returned to the papers they had saved from every chapter of their life together. He began sorting them, writing, remembering, healing. What started as a project of preservation became something more—a love letter, a legacy and a final salute to the life they built together.
“It was unbelievable,” he said. “Having these boxes of materials organized chronologically, I could actually pull a box out and just muse through all these letters, military documents and other paraphernalia. All that stuff from that era would literally come rushing back into my memory.”
B.B. Bell, left, meets with comedian Bob Hope during a Desert Shield and Desert Storm visit in 1990. Photo courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
The resulting 350-page book, he said, was a labor of love. All profits from its sales benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which supports veterans and first responders.
Carolyn Runyon, director of UTC Library’s Special Collections, said Bell’s donation adds a valuable new dimension to the University’s archives.
“I think for students, it’s really interesting for them to see what they might be able to make of their lives,” she said. “Gen. Bell helped pay for his tuition and education through ROTC and is kind of the American story.”
Bell’s collection joins the papers of other influential alums and community figures recently donated to Special Collections—including composer Roland Carter, artist Barry Moser and state legislator Dr. Tommie Brown—forming a growing record of Chattanooga lives that have shaped history far beyond the city.
“Every time we add a new collection, we provide global access to materials that represent part of Chattanooga’s history,” Runyon said. “Collections like this help make Chattanooga part of the larger historical conversation.”
Bell said he’s simply grateful to share what he can.
“I’m not seeking any publicity,” he said. “These are just my memoirs. But if they help tell the story of my family, my wife and our lives of service, and if they help future students or historians understand what it means to lead and to love—then that’s a story worth preserving.”
For Bell, Veterans Day is not about medals or rank but about the people who wear the uniform and the values that endure when it’s folded away.
“It’s emotional to put on the uniform and certainly emotional to take it off,” he wrote in an essay reflecting on his service. “Being with my fellow military service members in difficult, complex and even dangerous environments where we depended on one another for mission success—and in some cases for our lives—was all very special to me. Leaving was very difficult.”
For a general who calls himself “nondescript,” it’s a legacy that could not be more remarkable.
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The uniform: A retired general reflects on his service
Images courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections
