In one of my all-time favorite songs, Loves Me Like a Rock, Paul Simon poses the rhetorical question, “Who, who do you think you’re fooling?” Well, I would like to ask weekend news anchor turned fledgling Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who the heck he thinks he’s fooling by renaming Fort Liberty (nee Fort Bragg) Fort Bragg all over again. Exit the original 1918 honoree, Civil War General Braxton Bragg, and enter World War II honoree Private First Class Roland Bragg.
It is a fair bet that most Americans will never know that and will not care if they do realize what has happened.
The situation is that now President Donald Trump made changing the name of the most populous military base in the country back to Fort Bragg a campaign issue. He did so because the millions of people who have passed through the base think of it by that name and because “lost cause” and white nationalist supporters in his base were upset when Confederate Braxton Bragg was stripped of that honor.
A little history here. In 2021, Congress mandated the renaming of all military bases honoring Confederate soldiers, and 9 bases were indeed renamed in 2023. Change is hard for most people, and these changes were no exception. Layer on the political and racial tensions still swirling around the Civil War 160 years later with a hard-fought, highly divisive Presidential race and here we are.
Historians and scholars debate the question of renaming buildings, monuments, military bases, and such for people who are later disgraced in some way, in this case for supporting slavery and attempting to divide our nation. We cannot erase history, they argue, so it is better to focus on explaining it accurately and teaching it to future generations. It is a reasonable argument.
In addition, we seek to erase Braxton Bragg and the 8 other Confederates honored with military bases named for them, but we continue to honor others who also supported positions and realities we now find repugnant and unworthy. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both slave owners, but have you ever heard anyone advocating renaming or destroying the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial? Is renaming just for those lesser than a Founding Father?
But back to the various Braggs.
Out of the millions of United States veterans, Roland Bragg was one of at least 5 soldiers named Bragg considered for the renaming. The list also included a US Ambassador and Congressman and a woman pilot who helped open flight training for black pilots at 5 locations, including the famed Tuskegee Institute. The operative word here, of course, is Bragg, because the whole idea was to go back to the future.
That said, Roland Bragg, was a hero in a way the mediocre Braxton Bragg was not. As 21-year-old paratrooper from Maine, Roland Bragg earned the Silver Star and 2 Purple Hearts for his service, which included stealing a Nazi ambulance, loading up 4 wounded US paratroopers, and driving them 20 miles through active gunfire to an allied hospital. Bragg believed that all 4 died of their wounds until he received a letter from one of them in 1993 and they reunited.
However worthy this enlisted man is, it is hard to get around the deep cynicism of this renaming. It is less to honor a hero than to wink at and perpetuate history and ways of thinking that millions of Americans find increasingly offensive and a violation of the spirit of the law passed by Congress in 2020. It is a sleight of hand that most Americans will never know happened.
So, “who,” Pete Hegseth, “who do you think you’re fooling?”