United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Feb. 10 signed a memo that says Fort Liberty will become Fort Bragg again, but this time it won’t be to honor Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, the Department of Defense announced.
Instead, America’s largest Army post will be named in honor of Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, who was stationed at Fort Bragg during World War II and then fought in Europe, Hegseth’s memo says. It says Roland Bragg was awarded a Silver Star for gallantry and a Purple Heart for being wounded.
The memo says the Secretary of the Army will set a timeline for implementing the name change to Fort Roland L. Bragg.
Fort Bragg became Fort Liberty on June 2, 2023.
The name change from Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty was made to comply with a law that Republicans and Democrats in Congress enacted on Jan. 1, 2021. This came following America’s “racial reckoning” of protests in 2020 after a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, murdered George Floyd, a Black man who was originally from Fayetteville, while arresting him. The name change was part of a broad effort to remove from U.S. military installations and other military property the names of Confederate leaders.
Southern Democrats started the Civil War against the United States in 1861 because they feared newly elected Republican President Abraham Lincoln would abolish their enslavement of Black people. The Southern Democrats lost the war.
Many military installations across the country were named in honor of their Confederate heroes during the early and mid-20th century, years after the Civil War ended. These included Fort Bragg, which began as Camp Bragg in 1918.
The installation was named for Braxton Bragg. Bragg, who was born in North Carolina, served as a general in the Confederate Army. He also enslaved over 100 people, according to the Washington Post.
The Army in 2023 estimated it was spending $8 million to change Fort Bragg’s name
to Fort Liberty.
While many people celebrated that Fort Liberty was no longer named in honor of a man who fought for slavery and who was a traitor to his country, many others bemoaned the name change.
Some veterans, and their family members, argued that the name “Bragg” over the decades took on a new meaning for them that transcended its origins as a tribute to a Southern Democrat Confederate hero. They said the name “Bragg” became about their heroism and not about Braxton Bragg.
Republican President Donald Trump — who vetoed the name-change bill during his first term — promised voters in 2024 that he would change Fort Liberty’s name back to Fort Bragg.
The name-change law of 2021 said military bases shall no longer be named in honor of people who served the Confederacy. It had the military create a commission to suggest new names for nine military bases that had been named in honor of Confederate leaders. The suggestions were announced in May 2022 and were later approved by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
With the order of new Defense Secretary Hegseth, the post will be named for a man named Bragg who fought for his fellow American soldiers instead of killing them.
“Born in 1923 in Sabattus, Maine, Pfc. Bragg entered U.S. Army service and was assigned to the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, and was stationed at Fort Bragg during World War II,” Hegseth’s memo says.
“Pfc. Bragg fought with distinction in the European theater of operations. He received the Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity, and the Purple Heart for wounds sustained, during the Battle of the Bulge,” it says.
“During these hellish conditions and amidst ferocious fighting, Pfc. Bragg saved a fellow Soldier’s life by commandeering an enemy ambulance and driving it 20 miles to transport a fellow wounded warrior to an allied hospital in Belgium.”

(Photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)