Pete Hegseth, laser-focusing on the important stuff as the new Defense Secretary, just changed the name of Fort Liberty in North Carolina back to Fort Bragg.
But there was a catch.
You may remember that we changed the name from Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty in 2023, as part of the effort to get the names of Confederate leaders off our U.S. military installations, for probably obvious reasons
If it’s not obvious: Confederates took up arms against the U.S. government during the Civil War, were basically traitors, shouldn’t have their names on anything other than a list of people who shouldn’t have their names on anything.
OK, so, but Hegseth, a key guy in the administration that is going out of its way to be cruel to people of color, et cetera, made it clear in his announcement about Fort Liberty again being Fort Bragg that the Bragg in the new Fort Bragg isn’t the Confederate general guy from before.
No, Hegseth – actually, probably somebody else – found some random guy with the last name Bragg that they could claim was the new inspiration, a guy who was literally an Army private who served in World War II.
“I was honored to be able to put my signature on that, by the way, with the support of the president of the United States, who set the tone on this and said, I want Fort Bragg back,” Hegseth told reporters during a Feb. 11 briefing in Germany.
Can’t make this stuff up, folks.
“The tactic is a juvenile, you know, wink-wink at pro-Confederacy people,” said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in a conference call with reporters on Thursday.
The Bragg that we’re not supposed to pretend is the new namesake for the Army base was a guy named Roland Bragg, who, truth be told, bravely commandeered a German ambulance during the Battle of the Bulge so that he could transport a wounded service member 20 miles to an allied hospital in Belgium.
No doubt, this Roland Bragg was a brave guy, but Hegseth, quoting Trump saying, “I want Fort Bragg back,” gave away the game.
“it’s interesting that the Secretary of Defense says he wants to get out of the culture issues and all that, but he’s nodding to confederates. So, he’s not one to get out of cultural issues, he’s just got a particular culture that he favors, and other cultures that he doesn’t,” Kaine said.
Because the Fort Bragg that Trump wants back is the one named for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general who was best-known for getting routed by Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Chattanooga and being relieved of his command by Jefferson Davis.
Braxton Bragg, according to the Wikipedia entry on his life, is “generally considered among the worst generals of the Civil War,” so, he wasn’t only a traitor, he was a loser traitor.
Seems to be par for the course for this Trump gang, which is intent on elevating unqualified White folks that they’re telling people have been done wrong by DEI programs.
“What appears to me is, the Defense Secretary is trying to, you know, poke a hornet’s nest,” said U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in a separate conference call on Thursday.
“I hope he will think twice in Virginia before he would go about renaming, and if he will, if he does, I’m sure Tim Kaine and Jennifer McClellan, Bobby Scott, and hopefully the balance of the delegation, will stand up and say, you know, we went through a process in Virginia, people, for the most part, I think, felt heard and listened to. Why reopen this can of worms when people already have moved on?” Warner said.
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Chris Graham
