Captain Edward W. Gantt was born in Fairmount Heights, Maryland and educated by the public school system of Washington, D.C. Upon graduation from high school in June 1969, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He spent most of the next three years as a helicopter crew member, including a twelve-month tour in South Vietnam as a helicopter door gunner and crew chief.
In 1974, Captain Gantt enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. As a Biology and Chemistry student, he was in a Pre-med curriculum until graduating in May 1977. He decided to pursue a life-long dream of aviation instead of medicine and entered the Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) in Pensacola, Florida. He was awarded his Naval Flight Officer "Wings of Gold" in 1978, and reported to Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia for training in the F-14A TOMCAT.
His assignments have taken him to the Mediterranean Sea with the U.S. Sixth Fleet, to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf with the Fifth Fleet and to the Pacific Ocean area with the Seventh Fleet. He has accumulated over two thousand hours in the F-14 while flying from the decks of the aircraft carriers USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, USS SARATOGA, USS FORRESTAL and USS CARL VINSON.
In July 2000, Captain Gantt took command of the Recruit Training Command, the Navy Boot Camp at Great Lakes, IL. At the Navy’s only Boot Camp, he was responsible for the development of nearly 50,000 sailors annually. Captain Gantt retired from the Navy in September 2003 after 29 years of active service. Following his military retirement, he was a full-time substitute at Gibbs Elementary School, Washington, DC for one year. From August 2004 until July 2006, he served as Senior Naval Science Instructor at Bowie High School Navy Junior ROTC, Bowie, MD. He later served as the Senior Naval Science Instructor at Frederick Douglass High School Navy Junior ROTC, Upper Marlboro, MD until retiring in 2013.
In the Fall of 2014, Captain Gantt returned to Howard University as a full-time graduate student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Then in November of 2016, he returned to the high school classroom as the Senior Naval Science Instructor at Bell High School in Washington, DC.
Captain Gantt was introduced to Civil War re-enacting by the 23rd Regiment, USCT (United States Colored Troops) when he answered the call to take part in the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of the Wilderness. He has been an active member of the 23rd Regiment since 2014.
Among his most significant military accomplishments are completion of the United States Army Airborne and Ranger Schools at Fort Benning, Georgia.