The U.S. Army base formerly known as Fort Bragg will once again bear its old name — but this time but in honor of a new namesake.
The Fayetteville, N.C. base was originally named after the controversial Confederate general Braxton Bragg, and bore that title for a century. The Defense Department changed it to Fort Liberty in 2023 as part of a broader initiative to rename nearly a dozen military installations that had previously honored Confederate leaders.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum changing the base’s name once again, this time to Fort Roland L. Bragg.
“That’s right: Bragg is back,” Hegseth said as he signed the document on board a military aircraft, in a video shared by the Department of Defense (DoD).
Bragg, a private first class with the 17th Airborne Division, isn’t exactly a household name. The DoD describes him as a “World War II hero who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.”
Debra Sokoll, one of Bragg’s daughters, told NPR on Tuesday morning that she was surprised to learn of the renaming just a few minutes earlier when another reporter called to ask about it.
Her husband, Chris Sokoll, said someone from the Army had left them a message on Monday night, but they hadn’t yet returned the call.
Good. They should have just done this in the first place. Fort Liberty is dumb, might as well have named it Fort Kickass. Yes, I know the services couldn’t agree on a name and that’s why it got Liberty, but it shouldn’t have been that hard to agree on another guy named Bragg. Like how Washington renamed King County for MLK instead of whatever racist it was before.
It would behoove you to read this. Especially the part about the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)
I would also suggest you think about your privilege and what it might mean to a person of color to hear “we changed the name back to the name of the racist guy, but it’s actually a different guy that we found with the exact same name so it’s totally different and you have no reason to be offended” and change “racist guy” to “the guy who raped your sister.”