Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that he is renaming Fort Liberty, whose previous name honoring the Confederate general Braxton Bragg was changed in 2023 as part of a wider effort to eliminate military honors bestowed on individuals who rebelled against the Union during the Civil War.
The move returns the Army base in North Carolina to being called Fort Bragg, but the name will now honor an enlisted Army soldier named Roland L. Bragg, who according to a Pentagon statement was awarded a Silver Star and the Purple Heart for combat during World War II.
The Pentagon statement offered no further biographical information about Pfc. Bragg, but a Military Times website that collects historical information on valor awards, shows that a Roland L. Bragg earned a Silver Star while serving with the 17th Airborne Division during World War II. The site did not have a photo of Pfc. Bragg or the citation that would offer the reasons he received that award.
The 17th Airborne fought in Germany at the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944, and parachuted across the Rhine River in March 1945.
The 2021 defense budget directed that nine military bases that honored Confederate figures would be renamed after review by a commission of retired senior military officers and civilians.
The commission said in a 2022 report that it purposefully did not choose different honorees with the same last name as the Confederate figures.
Mr. Hegseth’s decision, however, does exactly that — swapping out Braxton Bragg in favor of Roland L. Bragg.
The 2022 report noted that Braxton Bragg was a slave-owning plantation owner who is considered to be “one of the worst generals of the Civil War,” and that most of the battles in which he was involved ended in defeat and tremendous losses for the Confederate Army.
President Trump, during his first term, had objected to the removal of Confederate names from military bases. He vetoed the defense bill that included the provision, only for the Senate to vote overwhelmingly to override it.
In an Oct. 2024 campaign event in Fayetteville, N.C., Mr. Trump had pledged to change the name of Fort Bragg back from Fort Liberty.
On Mr. Hegseth’s first day at the Pentagon, he referred to Fort Bragg in remarks to reporters as well as Fort Benning, another base formerly named for a Confederate that was renamed to Fort Moore.
Mr. Hegseth issued the Fort Bragg memorandum on Monday while flying to Europe on a military plane. In a video posted on a Pentagon website, the secretary is seen sitting at a desk while signing the memo.
“That’s right,” he said after reading a portion of the order, “Bragg is back.”
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