There’s a new dawn on Fort Liberty, the 250-square-mile military estate where American soldiers stand ready to defend this nation within 18 hours of any crisis call or threat, be it foreign or domestic.
An Army soldier, no matter the name of his or her military base station assignment, is an Army soldier.
A nation’s call, and there can be no compromise. A nation’s call, and there can be no retreat. A nation’s call, and an Army soldier follows his or her soldier’s oath, “So help me God.”
Fort Bragg’s colors had been cased and taken away; the colors of the dawning of a new name for the military post had been uncased, unfurled and now proudly danced in a Friday morning’s gentle breeze as close to 1,000 military personnel and civilians were there to bear witness.
“It’s my honor to welcome you to Fort Liberty,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue would say after the redesignation Friday morning of the world’s most populated Army installation at the Main Post Parade Field.
It would bring an end to the military post that has been known as Fort Bragg since Sept. 30, 1922, and four years before as Camp Bragg.
“The United States of America’s strategic platform is to respond to anything, anywhere in the world to ensure the liberty of all of our fellow citizens. As you look around this group across this installation and this community, you will know that we are ready to ensure liberty for all of our citizens anywhere with us today.”
‘My son died for liberty’
The 53-year-old commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps would then walk toward Patti a member of the local Renaming Committee and who was such a significant voice in the renaming of our neighboring military base for all who have served on Fort Bragg and who all will serve from this day on Fort Liberty.
“I was so incredibly proud,” Elliott, 58, would say, and then remember her son.
Spc. Daniel Lucas Elliott was killed at age 21 on July 15, 2011, when a roadside bomb struck a vehicle while the Youngsville native was serving with the 200th Military Police Command in Basra, Iraq. The Army Reserve soldier died three days before his 22nd birthday. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
“And I’m proud to be on this peaceful piece of property,” the words on his mother’s business card read. “I’m on sacred ground, and I’m in the best of company. I’m thankful for the things I’ve done. I can rest in peace. I’m one of the chosen ones. I made it to Arlington.”
It was Patti Elliott who, at a meeting of the local Renaming Committee that was considering a name in honor or memory of a soldier, suggested another thought.
“My son died for liberty,” she told the committee.
She later would explain her reasoning.
“I’m just an ordinary person,” Elliott would say. “I felt it important to honor the thousands of soldiers who came through Fort Bragg and the thousands to come through Fort Liberty.”
And later, she would reflect on what Friday’s ceremony would mean to her son, who paid the ultimate sacrifice for his country.
“I think he would be very proud,” she would say.
Her words were not lost on Donahue, the last American soldier to depart Afghanistan on Aug. 20, 2021, when the 82nd Airborne Division was under his command.
“We were given a mission and seized the opportunity,” Donahue would say about renaming the military post. “And we put together a tremendous team led by Gen. (Dan) McNeill and Command Sgt Maj. Steve England. There were options for Medal of Honor recipients and many legends’ names.”
The change was prompted by the U.S. Department of Defense after Congress mandated dropping the names of Confederate soldiers from nine military bases. They included Gen. Braxton Bragg, for whom Camp Bragg and Fort Bragg were named dating back to 1918.
Gen. Braxton Bragg, according to published reports, was a supporter of slavery and not a particularly successful leader. He died at age 59 on Sept. 27, 1876. The cost of renaming the military installation was about $8 million, according to Col. John Wilcox, the garrison commander.
Donahue would offer a litany of military names that were considered.
“Randall Shugart and Gary Gordon, who several times requested to go in and save their fellow crew members,” he would say. “They knew they were going to their death. Still, they went. Roy Benavidez got onto an aircraft without a weapon as an 18 series medic and went in and fought. Alvin York was probably one of the greatest soldiers we’ve ever had and probably one of the greatest stories of an American soldier.”
The World War I soldier, he said, earned the Medal of Honor.
Donahue would recall others to include Tom Payne, Matt Williams and Robert Miller, whose Gold Star mother was in attendance at Friday’s ceremonyi. Felix Conde-Falcon, Rodolfo “Rudy” Hernandez, James Gavin, Roscoe Robinson Jr. and Rock Merritt were considered, too.
“Every name was considered,” Donahue would say. “Everyone was considered. But how can you choose one and leave one behind? Patti Elliott stepped forward. She had the guts to challenge us. She said, ‘My son died for liberty.’ This post is more than a name. And Gen. McNeill was a kid who went down to the port of Wilmington and his father showed him lines of liberty ships (and talked) about our willingness to do anything to ensure liberty for others. That same port today sends out everything that is required for Ukraine and to ensure liberty for our allies and to ensure that Ukraine can fight against Russia.”
Donahue would cast his eyes toward Patti Elliott.
“And how do you repay a Gold Star mother?” he would ask. “She was a Gold Star mother who made us better.”
With the casing of the colors of yesterday, Fort Bragg was a memory.
With the uncasing of the colors of today and the tomorrows to come, and with active-duty soldiers, veterans, and state and local dignitaries watching with reverence, Fort Liberty dawned under a bright sunshine forevermore.
‘It never has been about a name’
“My first time on Fort Liberty was circa ’54-’55,” retired four-star Gen. Dan K. McNeill later would say. “With my friends and parents of Cub Scout Pack 20, we spent the day with the men and women, mostly men in those days, of the 18th Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Division. Without question at that time, I certainly knew nothing of Lt. Gen. Braxton Bragg. And with equal certainty, I can say I had no compelling need to learn of Braxton Bragg. But this I can say without equivocation: I was impressed by the paratroopers of the post and by what they did there day in and day out. From that day forward, in my mind, the image was visions of the men descending from the heavens under nylon parachute canopies and the intensity with which they went about their assigned tasks. I was too young to appreciate that a certain culture made them stand apart.”
McNeill, who grew up in the small town of Warsaw in Duplin County, would return to Fort Liberty in 1967 for ROTC summer camp when he learned all the more about duty as he prepared for a distinguished and decorated 40-year military career that would include deployments to Vietnam and Panama, and for the Gulf War and Afghanistan war.
“I became aware it was not the men themselves but it was their culture,” he would say. “Ergo, it never has been about a name. It never has been about simply the people, even though I came to learn the people, and all the people are the most important dimension. Rather, it is about the ethos, values and culture those people are about.
“Fortune favored me to have all four of my general officer promotion ceremonies and my retirement ceremony at different times at the Main Post flagpole,” says McNeill, who served as commander of Coalition Forces in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2003, commanding general of the U.S. Army Forces Command from 2004 to 2007, and commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan from Feb. 1, 2007, to June 3, 2008. “I also presided over a ceremony to say a post farewell to a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at that location. Today’s ceremony to name the post as Fort Liberty was the most fitting and meaningful of any of those occasions. Not only is Fort Liberty an enlightened choice of many possibilities of naming conventions, but it is absolutely the best sobriquet to show what the men and women and families and those of the communities who call the post a neighbor represent.”
‘Fort Liberty the right name’
Other Army veterans who now call Fayetteville home returned to their old military stomping grounds for Friday’s ceremony.
“The inspiring story about how the name Fort Liberty was chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of military leaders, community leaders and military family members reflects honor on everyone who ever served or will serve as a member of the team for America’s crisis response forces,” retired Maj. Gen. Al Aycock, who served with the 82nd Airborne Division, 18th Airborne Corps and 5th Special Forces Group Airborne, would say. “The spirit of the soldiers, civilians, family members and veterans who have served on this incredible military Installation is captured in the very concept of Liberty.
“It is more than just a name.
“It emphasizes the mission and the very reason that soldiers and our joint forces volunteer to serve at the ‘Home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces,’” Aycock would say. “It is the essence of the motivation for what those assigned to Fort Liberty will train to protect, deploy to preserve and fight to retain. For all those reasons, Fort Liberty is the right name.”
‘Tenets of patriotism’
Dan Dederick is the current civilian aide to the Army for North Carolina.
“The community has received this change very well,” the retired Marine and U.S. Intelligence lieutenant colonel would say. “It was not the Army’s decision but the local community. The Gold Star mother’s suggestion was well-taken, and the name really resonates with the defense of this great nation.”
Tommy Bolton is a former civilian aide to the Army for the state.
“The very name ‘Fort Bragg,’ world-renown for decades, was enjoying an iconic, near-legendary status,” Bolton says. “To some of the Army’s recruits and many transferees, it was not a location but a destination, where the most elite armed forces in the world are known to reside.
“When the name change was announced and Fort Liberty was introduced, it was clear: The perfect name had been selected. Liberty, in this context, inspires and excites the very basic tenets of patriotism, … the value of service to a greater cause, what it means to sacrifice for the benefit of others, and the cost to defend and support this great nation and preserve the ‘liberty’ and freedom we, as Americans, enjoy.
“There could be no better word than ‘liberty’ to further the heritage of this facility and cause a great and positive feeling among the magnificent men and women who choose to wear the uniform of today’s armed forces,” Bolton says. “Especially here at Fort Liberty.”
Epilogue
Reveille’s call will sound at 8 a.m. this day for the 57,000 military men and women who now call Fort Liberty home.
With the casing of the colors Friday, yes, Fort Bragg has become a memory, and Gen. Braxton Bragg, if you will, perhaps reduced to a footnote in military history. Fort Bragg artifacts, Donahue says, likely will be moved to the United States Center of Military History.
There are those who balk at the redesignation, to include veterans.
“It will always,” they say, “be Fort Bragg.”
But, Donahue would say, the soldiers of today and tomorrow will want to build their own military legacies.
“This is Fort Liberty,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue would say after Friday’s poignant and historic ceremony. “You are looking at it. It’s active-duty. It’s Gold Star mothers. It’s veterans. It’s all of us.”
An Army soldier, no matter the name of his or her military base station assignment, is an Army soldier.
A nation’s call, and there can be no compromise. A nation’s call, and there can be no retreat. A nation’s call, and an Army soldier follows his or her soldier’s oath.
“God bless America,” the post commander would remind us, “and liberty for all.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
