FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — What’s in a name? For many who served at Fort Bragg, set to be renamed “Fort Liberty” on Friday, the legendary Army installation is the central gravitational force around which their military careers and even their families have revolved.
“I left in 1997, came back after three years in Okinawa. I came back to Fort Bragg and I retired in 2014 from Fort Bragg,” said Army veteran Nikki Saulsberry, who began her service at the sprawling base in central North Carolina in 1989.
“My military career is on Fort Bragg. My kids were born here. My kids don’t know anything but Fort Bragg,” she said in an interview. “I think for the newer generation, when they get there, all they will know is Fort Liberty. But to me, it’s still going to be Fort Bragg.”
Swept up in the popular reaction to the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody in Minneapolis, the Pentagon announced a wide-reaching plan to scrub forts, bases, ships and other sites of names honoring the Confederacy and its military leaders.
Opened in 1918 and named for Gen. Braxton Bragg, a native North Carolinian and former U.S. Army artillery commander who fought for the South in the Civil War, the sprawling Fort Bragg was squarely in the crosshairs after Congress overrode then-President Trump’s objections in 2020 and ordered the name-changing campaign to proceed.
For one of the world’s most populous military installations, the transition does not promise to be easy.
Now the president of the Retired Military Association of North Carolina, Mrs. Saulsberry spoke to The Washington Times after the organization’s annual Memorial Day ceremony here in this North Carolina town, which is inextricably tied to the base culturally, emotionally and economically.
Those ties run deep. Many local businesses, from pawn shops to banks and motorcycle dealerships, proudly bear “Bragg” in their name. Bragg Boulevard runs through the heart of one of the region’s busiest business corridors.
The nearby All-American Freeway leads to the base itself, home to the iconic 18th Airborne Corps and its most famous division, the 82nd Airborne. By population, it’s the largest military base in the country, with over 53,000 active-duty troops stationed there and another 14,000 civilians working on site.
It’s about to undergo a historic change. After an independent military base-naming commission did its work, the installation is now to be known as Fort Liberty. All references to Gen. Bragg himself have been removed. Street signs have been or will soon be changed.
Local business leaders say they expect the vast majority of companies named in honor of the base to rebrand themselves over the next 18 months. Some, such as Liberty Ford of Fayetteville, already have embraced the base’s new name. Others are expected to follow suit soon.
But that may be the easy part. In interviews with nearly a dozen veterans who served on the base and subsequently built lives for themselves and their families in Fayetteville, reactions ranged from ambivalence to sadness and in some cases, anger.
For some, the symbolism of the name change was just one piece of the problem. They also cited the eye-popping costs associated with the rebranding: About $6 million for Fort Bragg alone, and millions of dollars more for the other nine Army installations that have either already been renamed or will be soon.
Some see a political agenda at work.
“I believe in the economy. We’re spending $6.5 million to change a name for woke-ism. That is insane,” said 83-year-old Don Talbot, an Army veteran who reported to Fort Bragg in 1963 at the age of 23. He went on to spend three years in Vietnam.
“Spending tax dollars to change a name. That’s ridiculous,” he told The Times while standing in the city’s Freedom Memorial Park, just steps away from monuments honoring those who died in World War I, World War II, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, and other wars throughout American history. Mr. Talbot and dozens of other veterans took part in the city’s annual Memorial Day ceremony at the park.
“We all know Fort Bragg because that’s our home. It’s not going to be Fort Liberty forever in our hearts, in our minds,” Mr. Talbot said. “I had tears in my eyes, [as crews were] taking the signs down on Bragg Boulevard.”
Commanders at the soon-to-be Fort Liberty say the redesignation will have no impact on the day-to-day functioning of the base, nor will it affect in any way whatsoever the installation’s reputation as the backbone of the United States Army. Personnel at the base, officials insist, aren’t preoccupied with the politics behind the renaming process.
“Here’s what I do know: Change is constant,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue, commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps.
“If you’re around any young kid who’s in the Army, here’s the one thing I do know: They don’t want to hear about the past. They want to hear about the future,” he told The Times this week after being asked whether the redesignation was a bittersweet moment for him and the men and women serving under his command.
Touching a nerve
The Pentagon has gone to great lengths to stem any potential backlash and, to the extent possible, to keep the name-change initiative from becoming a weapon in both partisan politics and a growing cultural struggle across the country. Those efforts seem to have been somewhat successful, as there have been few notable public protests against the redesignations and relatively little talk about it on Capitol Hill since the effort began in 2021.
The Defense Department’s Naming Commission had its origins in the months of nationwide racial unrest stemming from the May 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man, during an encounter with Minneapolis police. The renaming push was the clearest example of the Pentagon’s broader effort to purge its historical ties to the Confederacy and its legacy of slavery.
Then-President Donald Trump, an outspoken opponent of the redesignations, vetoed an annual defense spending bill that established the commission. But a bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress overrode his veto.
The process moved slowly but kicked into high gear this year. Texas’s famous Fort Hood is now Fort Cavazos, named after the Army’s first four-star Latino general. Georgia’s renowned Fort Benning was renamed Fort Moore in honor of Gen. Hal Moore, a Vietnam War hero famously portrayed by Mel Gibson in the film “We Were Soldiers.”
In a vacuum, there’s little opposition to the core understanding that honoring Confederate Civil War figures in the 21st century is at best a questionable idea, and at worst could easily be seen as deeply offensive, especially by Black Americans.
But the effort isn’t taking place in a vacuum. It’s part of what critics see as a much broader push to erase parts of America’s past and to demonize all historical figures who may have fallen short of the social and cultural standards of today.
More broadly, unease with the direction of the country was on full display in Fayetteville.
“I believe this country is still worth fighting for and I am still one of the ones that could squeeze the trigger if I had to take back our country. Because at some point in time, you just have to look at the things that are going on around you and say, ‘Something isn’t right,’” retired Army Maj. Gen. William Kirkland said during his keynote speech at the Memorial Day ceremony in Fayetteville. “Something just isn’t right … If push comes to shove and I have to jump back in uniform of some sort, I will be one of the first ones out saying that this we will defend, and I’m pointing to the U.S. flag.”
After the ceremony, Mr. Kirkland was asked by The Times about his thoughts on the renaming effort.
“I’m not woke. We’re trying to appease a lot of folks who have no clue,” said Mr. Kirkland, a Black man. “After the Civil War, from what I’ve read, that was a conciliation for the South being repatriated back [into the United States], to try to bring people back together. Fast forward, we have done the exact opposite now.”
That sentiment was echoed by many others.
“I think it’s uncalled for, unnecessary. It’s culture change, or change culture, whatever,” said 72-year-old Army veteran Michael Gillis, who served at Fort Bragg.
Others said they were always aware of the history of the base and don’t fully understand why there’s been such a sudden, fierce push to make the change.
“We knew who they were. But now all of the sudden, this new generation, something changed,” said Mrs. Saulsberry, a Black woman. “He was Confederate. It didn’t matter back then when we did it. I knew who they were … It didn’t matter to me. I knew who they were.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.