Some of the U.S. Army’s most renowned posts are set to be renamed as the Defense Department prepares to scrub former Confederate generals from its history.
The list of sites targeted for rechristening includes Fort Benning in Georgia, the home of the Army’s infantry training center and one battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment; Fort Bragg in North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne Division; Fort Hood in Texas, home of the 1st Cavalry Division; and Fort Rucker in Alabama, home of the Army’s aviation training center.
Besides Benning, Bragg, Hood, and Rucker, the commission seeks to rename Forts Polk in Louisiana; Gordon in Georgia; A.P. Hill, Lee, and Pickett in Virginia.
According to Stars and Stripes, which first reported the story, the congressionally mandated Naming Commission whittled down more than 34,000 suggestions to come up with 87 possible replacement names for the posts.
The outlet also noted, “The nine bases in question, all in former Confederate states, were named during the 1910s and 1940s amid the south’s Jim Crow era.”
True. But there is a little more nuance.
All nine were built or opened in either 1917 and 1918 or 1941 or 1942 – when the United States was embroiled in or gearing up for one of two world wars.
In 2016, Military.com posted the question of why did these bases get named for “traitors.”
One answer is that after the Civil War there was a prolonged, decadeslong effort to reconcile North and South. That era also was not steeped in today’s woke politics, and the posts were named for generals well known for their military expertise and leadership.
Undoubtedly, the South was also chosen for its open area, cheap land, and the benefit of a climate more favorable to year-round training.
But this effort is a creation of the Biden administration.
As Stars and Stripes reported, “Army and Pentagon leaders began looking at stripping bases of Confederate-linked names in 2020 amid a nationwide racial reckoning after the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.” The Naming Commission was created by a provision in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.
The relatively short list of finalists for the new names includes former President Dwight Eisenhower; former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell; abolitionist Harriet Tubman; Medal of Honor recipients Lt. Audie Murphy, Sgt. Alvin York, and Sgt. William Carney, the first black man to receive the medal; Gen. George Marshall, Army chief of staff during World War II and former Secretary of State; Gen. Omar Bradley, the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, a native of Oviedo who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Iraq.
Besides Tubman, at least 11 other women made the commission’s list.
According to Stars and Stripes, the commission will now float the new names to the communities where they are. The finalists are due to Congress by Oct. 1.
PJ Media columnist Rick Moran pointed out that a similar attempt was made in 2020, but then-President Donald Trump threatened to veto the defense bill if it included a provision to rename the posts.
Moran added, “It’s all so stupid and silly. To judge someone who lived 150 years ago using modern sensibilities regarding slavery and race is ludicrous.”
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