President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth say Fort Liberty now is Fort Bragg, and by the hand of Hegseth last week. Trump said at a town hall campaign rally in October at the Crown Arena that, if elected, he would change Fort Liberty back to be known as Fort Bragg. And sure enough, he was elected, and sure enough, the 47th U.S. president kept his promise.
But you have to be honest here.
Trump, as well as Hegseth, have been somewhat sly about it.
Fort Bragg is official, but the name does not reflect its original namesake – Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, for whom the military base originally was named dating back to Sept. 30, 1922, and four years before as Camp Bragg.
‘My son died for liberty’
The change to Fort Liberty was prompted by the U.S. Department of Defense after Congress in 2021 mandated dropping the names of Confederate soldiers from nine military bases: Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia; Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia; Fort Hood in Texas; Fort Polk in Louisiana; Fort Rucker in Alabama; and Fort Bragg.
That’s when a local Renaming Committee headed by Dan McNeill, a retired 4-star general who lives in Fayetteville, went to work trying to find a new name for our neighboring Army post, eventually settling on the suggestion of committee member Patti Elliott. Patti Elliott is the Gold Star mother whose son, Spc. Daniel Lucas Elliott, was killed at age 21 on July 15, 2011. The soldier died when a roadside bomb struck a vehicle while the Youngsville native was serving with the 200th Military Police Command in Basra, Iraq.
“My son died for liberty,” she told the committee that included retired Command Sgt. Maj. Steve England; retired Army Maj. Gen. Rodney O. Anderson; Fayetteville City Council Member Kathy Keefe Jensen; then Cumberland Board of County Commissioners Chair Glenn Adams; and George Breece among others.
Not just her son, she later told me, but so many others.
“I felt it important to honor the thousands of soldiers who came through Fort Bragg,” she said, “and the thousands to come through Fort Liberty.”
The military base was designated as Fort Liberty on June 2, 2023, at the Main Post Parade Field as active duty, retired veterans and community leaders from Fayetteville and surrounding communities were in attendance.
“It’s my honor to welcome you to Fort Liberty,” Gen. Chris Donahue, then commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps, said with the uncasing of colors for Fort Liberty.
Donahue told us of other names considered by the committee. Soldiers, he said, to include Randall Shugart, Gary Gordon, Roy Benavidez, Alvin York, Tom Payne, Matt Williams, Felix Conde-Falcon, James Gavin, Roscoe Robinson Jr., Rodolfo “Rudy” Hernandez, Rock Merritt and Robert Miller, whose Gold Star mother was in attendance.
Every name, Donahue said, was considered.
“But how can you choose one,” he said, “and leave one behind?”
Then he looked toward Patti Elliott.
“And how do you repay a Gold Star mother?” he asked.
‘Always Fort Bragg’
Adios it was to the old Confederate general, but renaming the military base still didn’t sit well with some who balked at changing Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty, and many were retired veterans who call Cumberland County home.
“It always will be Fort Bragg,” if I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it 100 times more. “I’ll never call it Fort Liberty. It’s Fort Bragg.”
And many at the Make America Great Again town hall on Oct. 4 at the Crown Arena cheered when Donald Trump vowed to rebrand the military post.
“Pursuant to the authority of the Secretary of Defense, Title 10, United States Code, Section 113, I direct the Army to change the name of Fort Liberty, North Carolina, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in honor of Private First Class Roland L. Bragg, who served with great distinction during World War Il with the United States Army, and in recognition of the installation’s storied history of service to the United States of America,” Hegseth’s memorandum to the acting secretary of the Army reads.
Hegseth was aboard a military aircraft headed for Germany when he signed the memorandum.
“That’s right,” he said in a Department of Defense video. “Bragg is back.”
Well, Mr. Secretary, kind of back.
The memorandum described Pvt. Bragg as assigned to the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, and he was stationed on Fort Bragg during World War II. He was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry and the Purple Heart.
As a soldier, Bragg had moxie, and you can read about Bragg’s soldiering grit in Jeremy Markovich’s North Carolina Rabbit Hole weekly newsletter that CityView republished last week. Markovich writes about how Bragg escaped from a Nazi prison camp, commandeered a German vehicle (ambulance) and saved the lives of fellow prisoners to include a wounded prisoner Bragg transported to an allied hospital in Belgium.
It’s an interesting read about Bragg, who died of cancer at age 75 in 1999 at his home in Nobleboro in Maine.
Epilogue
So, what’s in a name?
Dan McNeill, the retired general 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, may have said it best on that June 2, 2023, when uncasing of the Fort Liberty colors was done.
“Ergo, it never has been about a name,” said McNeill, who is a native of Warsaw in Duplin County. “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.”
That’s putting it quite well into perspective.
The name of the military installation today is Fort Bragg, according to a base spokesperson, but the world’s largest military base by population, will not change for the 57,000 men and women in uniform who now call Fort Bragg home in honor of the late Pfc. Roland L. Bragg.
When under domestic or foreign threat, they stand ready within a moment’s notice to respond to a nation’s call.
Take it, if you will, from Gen. Chris Donahue, who reminded us on June 2, 2023: “This post is more than a name.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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