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.
Celebrating his contributions to the Union victory!
I do care about the Confederate thing, I grew up in the South and saw the results of the “lost cause” rhetoric and the awful narrative rewriting the Daughters of the Confederacy types did in both public consciousness and the school history books. The name of this fort is part of that.
But I think you bring up a good point, that having two Fort Braggs is bad and annoying, and this fog horn of a dog whistle is shitty for multiple reasons.