At the first available opportunity to return to her roots, Staff Sgt. Esther Blake transferred from the Army to the Air Force on July 8, 1948, minutes after the start of the first duty day for the WAF, along with 11 other women at Fort McPherson, near Atlanta. She remained on active duty with the Air Force until 1954, when she separated because of a disability and went to work as a civil servant at the Veterans Administration Regional Headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama.
