While flying aboard a C-17 from Joint Base Andrews to Stuttgart on February 10, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum renaming Fort Liberty in North Carolina to Fort Bragg. The new name pays tribute to Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II hero who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge. This change underscores the installation’s legacy of recognizing those who have demonstrated extraordinary service and sacrifice for the nation.
Comment: Well that’s a pretty slick solution. A lot of us old timers are just too familiar with the old names to change at this stage in our lives. Growing up, I never really dwelled on the Confederate namesakes of these posts. It was always the Benning School for Boys and Fort Bragg, Home of the Airborne to me. Hell, Fort Moore isn’t even the Home of the Infantry anymore. It’s the Maneuver Center of Excellence. Time marches on.
Roland Bragg was at least a paratrooper once stationed at Fort Bragg. He’s a far better namesake than Braxton Bragg. I wonder if he realized who Braxton Bragg was. Ole Braxton was known for his incompetence and losing battles, an embarrassment even to the Confederates. He was probably the inspiration for Lil’ Abner’s Jubilation T. Cornpone.
The Fayetteville Observer gives the best background on Roland Bragg that I have found so far. I actually like the idea that his most heroic incident occurred because both he and his German captor were Masons, an amazing stroke of luck.
I never liked the name Fort Liberty. I’m surprised the renaming commission could’t come up with something better than that. There are plenty of military heroes worthy of being commemorated. Liberty was a lazy choice.
TTG
Hillbilly Land’s got a saying, “Whatever works.”
So far as ol’ Braxton’s being much inspiration for anything much I dunno. Capp as I recall was a Connect-eun weren’t he?
Maybe owing to Brax’ incompetence coupled to siting the fort down south the victorious were kinda doing an “inside joke”?
The southerlys however always could take a joke and so could work with being the butt of one (accepting the moolah and bank it!) Bragg only really becoming a problem when, as a namesake, *he came upside a side who was always recognized as not knowing how to take a joke.
Them folks, as is commonly accepted always did take theyselves too seriously. Soo competent. So too competent, as to never see “re-electing Hitler” coming at ’em like a real bright light ato’ther end of the tunnel.
Go ahead and laugh. Don’t matter we all laughing at the same time even if we ain’t laughing at the same thing. Question being which side’s laughter is the heartier you reckon? … Heh heh … whatever works!
JK/AR,
Here’s one –
Democrats in 1860 “But who’s going to pick the crops?”
Democrats in 2025: “But who’s going to pick the crops?”
Heh heh Eric, Goodern!
As if Schumer’s at all concerned with, despite his exhortations to the crowd to join him in in chorusing,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXLah4nRlFA
Is gonna result whatsoever in getting any “Crop Pickers” to join in the refrain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8zP1wsXb0
We’ll just be enjoying the dickens out of ourselves watching this stuff shan’t we Eric? At least until the mid-terms when, historically speaking, the composition of the House shifts at which point Impeachment proceedings will begin afresh.
And, heh heh (LOL!!!) Chucky Shoom can try again getting his crowd riled up. As if
Good on Hegspeth for not renaming it after Braxton Bragg, who was absolutely the worst general in the Confederate Army. I had always thought Fort Bragg should have been named Fort Baker after NC born Brigadier Laurence Baker, a real hero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_S._Baker
But I’m good with honoring Roland Bragg.
Never saw that dogpatch movie Thank God. But I faithfully followed the Lil Abner comics as a boy. Mainly to gawp at Daisy Mae who stole my heart back 75 years ago.
(Sidebar Leith … Ssshh
” __________ who was absolutely the worst general in the Confederate Army.”
Actually Leith. one could spend ten years longer than either (both!) the confederates or the war itself arguing which rebel general was the worst.
I personally vote Hindman. Second worst, Pike.)
JK –
I believe you are correct about General Pike. I may have been too hasty. Maybe I should have said worst Army Commander about Bragg.
Why Hindman? Did his troops try to frag him like they did with General Bragg?
As bad confederate generals go, I think we have to consider Earl Van Dorn who did some good things but lost the whole trans-Mississippi in a battle where he caught the union army completely by surprise and outnumbered it by half. Even that would have been survivable if he had just kept his army in Arkansas and continued the fight. The confederate army was defeated mostly by a missing supply train. Rearmed, it was still a formidable fighting force. But in a funk Van Dorn took his army across the river to Mississippi to help out another candidate for worst general, northern-born John Pemberton. The mystique of brilliant confederate generals was way overhyped.
The original name change should have been to Fort Gavin.
Yes!
I always found fascinating the outsized importance of the Civil War and its leaders in American historiography. By most measures World War II was a bigger and a historically more important conflict, but there is little acknowledgement of WWII military leaders through memorials, statues, etc.
I get there is a political aspect to it with the Lost Cause movement and historical revisionism in the early 20th century, but the what always surprises me is how enduring this effect is. Even now people will put up statues of Civil War generals but there is no discussion of putting up any WWII statues. I live in Charlottesville and lack of recognition for Gen. Vandegrift, who was born and grew up in the city (UVA graduate), compared to now removed statues of Lee and Jackson, was always striking.
voislav,
I do believe that’s because the Civil War has not really ended for a lot of Americans. As you correctly surmise “the Lost Cause movement and historical revisionism in the early 20th century” has a lot to do with it. The UDC waged a massive and successful information war after the cannons were silenced. But it didn’t end there. The fight continued during the Civil Rights era and continues to this day.
Another reason for far less recognition of WWII in American historiography is the simple fact that WWII was not waged on American soil.
Here in the land of Schofield, Ruger, and Shafter we don’t have that problem.
TTG,
“I do believe that’s because the Civil War has not really ended for a lot … ”
Back when I was a wee [ish] lad that assertion held generally true. And by my reckoning it largely held up until about 1980 or thereabouts; *real “white supremacists/Democrat Governors” (Faubus, Wallace, Maddox, Byrd etc) largely dying off by that time. Stealing from Lloyd Bentson, “TTG, I knew actual white supremacists and your Personal memory of the like don’t hold a candle to what they actually were.”
But that stuff ain’t really whats brought me back to this post’s comment thread. A ways awayback I showed a fellow from my past Colonel Lang’s site and he, while never commenting – holds to today – remains a reader. So …
Mea culpa [after a fashion] TTG. My ‘fellow’s memory’ is clearer (and elderlyier older! – take that you, you know what! – no, not you TTG) At any rate TTG when you reckon Brax Bragg being the inspiration for Jubilation T. I reckon,
You TTG, may well have a pert good eye – there being a right smart smidge of a resem-bal-ense:
https://singlemomtakingovertheworld.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/dogpatch-usa-the-abandon-theme-park/
TTG,
Pat Lang’s take was a bit less divisive than the yankee revisionism. Yes the party of slavery and jim crow did a lot of damage to unity. Now the same party is bandying ‘secession’ once more. Seems to be a convenient rallying cry, but asking where in the Constitution never being able to leave is located doesn’t get one fare in polite society. Especially amongst the folks who are new here.
Sorry to go off topic – but Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed!
Hallelujah.
Sayonara to Five-Eyes.
good riddance.
Five-Eyes will – whether “patriotic/loyal” or not, probably survive relatively intact. Whether that will be good for the US, solely, or not.
Let us review:
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/downer-turnbull-trump-poke-five-eyes
As well, we ought recall, McCain returned from the Halifax Conference with the Clinton campaign’s oppo product Steele Dossier
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-john-mccain-received-steele-dossier-trump-russia-2018-5
Carter Page gets “FISA Whacked” … with *some assistance from
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/fbi-attorney-admits-altering-email-used-fisa-application-during-crossfire-hurricane
However though one “views” Five-Eyes utility for the US, specifically, no one realistically can deny the old dictum
“Great powers do not have permanent friends but they do have permanent interests.”
So. In my humble estimation, whether the Five-Eyes construct remains in the same … or much the same … category of an “asset to US interests” is … debatable.
Now RFK Jr has been confirmed. Damn.
Say hello to measles, mumps & rubella; and iron lungs.
James –
Say hello to measles, mumps & rubella. They don’t respect borders.
And if Bonkers Bobby wants more black bear roadkill to drop off in Central Park, we have a few here in the great NW every Spring.
Leith
What’s this you say? Third world countries don’t have vaccination rates anywhere near that of the US and thus those illegals are infecting our people with measles, mumps and rubella? Someone should close the borders & ship them back. Then send their countries and the ngos that brought them here the bill.
Can you tell us whey the FDA banned red dye in food decades after RFK complained about it? Can you tell us why the FDA placing a vaccine on a childhood approval list grants the company immunity from suits? Feel free to see how many vaxxes beyond Polio & MMR are now “recommended”, when to be given, and guess why people might complain.
Today, after Trump’s talk with Putin, Hegseth says no NATO membership for Ukrainian and no return of land Russia occupies.
He did not disclose any concessions from Russia, at all
TRUMP SURRENDERS UKRAINE LANDS TO RUSSIA could be today’s headline.
https://rollcall.com/2025/02/12/trumps-proposed-ukraine-reset-gets-mixed-hill-reaction/
Per Roll Call:
…top Senate Republicans declined to comment on the developments when asked directly about them.
These included Sen.. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chair of the Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Other GOP lawmakers have yet to weigh in, including Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, an ardent Ukraine supporter who chairs the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
A third group of Republican members said late Wednesday morning that they had not yet seen Hegseth’s remarks.
Public critiques from congressional Republicans were few and far between.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was an anomaly. He seemed to suggest on “X” that the Trump administration had caved to Putin.
“We should have moral clarity who started this war, who is bombing cities indiscriminately and who our real friend here is,” Bacon wrote. “There are consequences of rewarding the invader even if its leader foolishly led over 700,000 of its citizens to slaughter.”
By contrast, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a strong supporter for three years of Ukraine’s defense, said he was not opposed to Trump’s bid, though he had not seen all the details.
Ukraine is “not going to stop fighting if they don’t think they have that deal,” said Graham, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and serves on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
Al,
how much of your $ did you spend buying Ukrainian war bonds, for the cause? Zero? “Al abandons ukraine” could be the headline. Lots of names to substitute for yours, too. There was zero reason for the US to obligate itself to defending any of the former soviet republics and less reason to do so now.
Fred, your knowledge of Ukraine’s possession of nuke weapons [the 4th largest outside of USA, Russia and France at the time] and the agreement for surrendering them appears nil. The USA, Brits and Russia agreed to assure the territorial integrity of Ukraine upon surrendering the Nukes. The Brits and USA have so far stood up to the agreement.
Looks like Donald “Chamberlain” Trump, not so, as Putin has played him.
al,
You avoided my question. You also failed to mention all those parties agreeing not to expand NATO. Try again.
$200 for medical supplies via Project CURE. So far. Plus I buy pork pelmeni once a week or so from Oksana, a Ukrainian refugee being sponsored by our church.
leith,
$17.99 for “Stand with Ukraine” Riesling. Which is actually German wine. Should say $36 since I gave a bottle to Larry as a Christmas present. I’m sure Ukraine got an appropriate amount, minus ‘carrying charges’.
You could do better Fred. Order yourself a good Bessarabian Merlot or an Odessan Cabernet from:
https://winesfromukraine.com/
Buy Yourself and Larry a bottle of Nemiroff Honey Pepper Vodka. Or if you are a purist, try their premium, Lex.
https://nemiroff.vodka/en/history-of-nemiroff/
I’d like to see Ft Benning restored.