Danny Powell hadn’t heard of the defense secretary’s decision to change the name of North Carolina’s largest military base back to Fort Bragg.
But the Black U.S. Army veteran said Wednesday he isn’t necessarily opposed to the move, especially since he and his military buddies never once referred to it as “Fort Liberty” in the nearly two years since it was renamed.
“Everybody called it Fort Bragg anyway,” said Powell, a retired Army sergeant who lives in Jonesboro.
Speaking to reporters in Germany this week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hinted at a wholesale reversal of the broader Biden administration effort in 2023 to remove names that honored Confederate leaders, including from nine Army bases.
“As the president has said, and I’ve said as well, we’re not done there,” Hegseth said. “I never called it Fort Liberty because it wasn’t Fort Liberty. It’s Fort Bragg.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
But this time around, the North Carolina base is being renamed for a different Bragg. Its original namesake, Gen. Braxton Bragg, was a Confederate general from Warrenton, North Carolina, who was known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles, contributing to the Confederacy’s downfall.
Now, Hegseth is renaming the base to honor Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, who the Army said was a World War II hero who earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart for exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.
Powell, a Desert Storm veteran who served eight years in the Army, said the move by President Donald Trump’s administration seems “a little disingenuous” to him.
“It’s sort of slick that he found another guy named Bragg,” laughed Powell, a 54-year-old grandfather of three who works as a short-distance truck driver. “That sort of makes me question the true intent.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
For others, the stated goal of renaming storied bases seems like a slippery slope, especially if the government can find past military heroes who share the same last names as the Confederates these posts were originally named for.
While no plans have been announced to rename Fort Moore in Georgia, Hegseth in the past has referred to it by its former name, Fort Benning.
For David Moore, a decision to remove his family’s name from the recently named Fort Moore in Georgia would be disappointing, he said. But he acknowledged that choice wouldn’t be up to him.
Credit: Mike Haskey/Ledger-Enquirer
Credit: Mike Haskey/Ledger-Enquirer
“We would be disappointed that the Secretary of Defense or leadership would reject those values if they were to change the name to something else because those values are clearly what they have already stated they want in today’s military,” Moore told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Fort Moore, located just outside Columbus, was long-known as Fort Benning — named after Henry Benning, another Confederate general. The base was renamed Fort Moore in 2023 after Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Moore, both of whom are buried there.
Hal Moore fought in the Korean and Vietnam wars and co-authored the bestselling book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young.” Julia Moore supported military families back home during her husband’s service.
At the American Legion in Marietta, one of the largest and most active in Georgia, veterans weighed in on the base name changes Tuesday afternoon.
Mike Denman served in the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War and he went through basic training, officer candidate school, ranger training and jump school at Fort Moore, formerly Fort Benning.
Even though the military hasn’t proposed changing that base name, Denman, 77, thinks it should. He said Fort Benning is “an heirloom. That’s not something you can change.”
“Too many people are connected to that name, that history and that memory,” he said.
Another Cobb County veteran, Jim Kopp, said he doubts they’ll remove Moore’s name from the base given his legacy.
“Hal Moore was a big hero in the Vietnam War,” Kopp said. “I wouldn’t doubt they’ll keep that one.”
The 83-year-old Vietnam veteran said he doesn’t think the base names should have been changed to begin with, and supports the move to change Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg. Other veterans gathered at the legion’s bar counter agreed.
But Walt Cusick, another Vietnam veteran, pushed back on the group’s consensus and said he doesn’t see any reason for changing the names again. He, too, pointed out that Hal Moore was a war hero, and it’s not like he did something wrong that would require changing the name.
“I don’t see why he’s doing it,” Cusick, 79, said. “If he’s just doing it so he can prove he can do it, it’s kind of offensive to the veterans.”
The legion’s commander, Jeff Garland, said the names shouldn’t have been changed from the beginning and should be changed back. He also said most veterans have other priorities beyond renaming military bases.
“Right or wrong, that’s what we in the military know as Fort Bragg,” Garland said. “There’s a lot more important things: getting the economy in shape, getting the borders controlled, keeping the fentanyl off our streets.”
Powell, the Clayton County veteran, said it’s tough calling these bases something new when they’ve had the same names for generations.
“Military guys like familiarity,” Powell said, noting he personally doesn’t have a problem with it.
But he “could see how somebody might be offended by a statue of a Confederate general on a freaking horse.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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