While flying from Joint Base Andrews to Stuttgart on Monday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum renaming Fort Liberty in North Carolina to Fort Roland L. Bragg.
The new name pays tribute to Private First Class 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,” said Defense Press Secretary John Ullyot.
Under the presidency of Joe Biden, many names of forts were changed. Fort Bragg was changed to Fort Liberty, because the original Braxton Bragg was a flawed human being and a Confederate Army war hero.
Former Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin renamed Fort Bragg into Fort Liberty in June of 2023, after a 2021 congressional commission had recommended the name be changed. The name-changing frenzy was all in reaction to the death of violence-prone wife-beater and drug abuser George Floyd in 2020, which sparked riots across America’s major cities.
“All this changed in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Many people protested systemic racism and pointed to Confederate statues and bases as part of that system. Congress established the commission in the National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal 2021. Then-President Donald J. Trump vetoed the legislation because of the presence of the commission, and huge bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress overrode his veto,” the Defense Department said in 2023.
Now, Fort Bragg is named after a mere private who shared the last name of Bragg but who was not in the Civil War.
The cost of renaming the nine forts that underwent the George Floyd process during the Biden Administration was $39 million.
