Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pulled the brake on changing the name of the former Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty.
On Monday, Mr. Hegseth signed a memo overruling a commission established by Congress to purge the names of Confederate leaders from all U.S. military posts.
“I direct the Army to change the name of Fort Liberty, North Carolina, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina,” he said aboard an Air Force C-17 en route to Europe for meetings with U.S. European Command, U.S. Africa Command and NATO officials.
“That’s right, Bragg is back,” Mr. Hegseth announced.
But there’s a twist.
Fort Bragg originally commemorated Braxton Bragg, an American army officer and later Confederate general known chiefly for his failure on the battlefield during the Civil War.
The “new and improved” Fort Bragg now honors Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, who served in Europe with the 17th Airborne Division during World War II.
Pfc. Bragg was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for wounds sustained during the Battle of the Bulge.
“During these hellish conditions and amidst ferocious fighting, Pfc. Bragg saved a fellow soldier’s life by commandeering an enemy ambulance and driving it 20 miles to transport a fellow wounded warrior to an Allied hospital in Belgium,” according to the memo Mr. Hegseth signed.
The 2021 defense budget mandated that all military bases that honored Confederate generals would be renamed, directing the creation of a Naming Commission composed of retired senior military officers and civilians.
The board specifically opted against honoring people with the same last name whose identities aren’t tainted by the Confederacy, such as Braxton Bragg’s cousin Edward Bragg, a congressman and diplomat who served with distinction in the Union Army during the Civil War.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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