‘An Underhanded Act of Renaming by Hegseth’

 

This tale begins back in 2020, during Trump’s first term in the White House.  Sen Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, in a very typical act of Yankee spite, introduced legislation to remove the names of Confederate heroes from any property owned by the federal government’s Dept of Defense.  The provisions of that legislation migrated to a military funding bill, which Trump vetoed, but the foolish Republicans in the US Senate joined with the Democrats and overrode it.  The removal of those Confederate names began in 2023. 

The woke DoD under Biden told the story this way:

‘Some Army bases, established in the build-up and during World War I, were named for Confederate officers in an effort to court support from local populations in the South. That the men for whom the bases were named had taken up arms against the government they had sworn to defend was seen by some as a sign of reconciliation between the North and South. It was also the height of the Jim Crow Laws in the South, so there was no consideration for the feelings of African Americans who had to serve at bases named after men who fought to defend slavery [on this misleading point, see the work of Kizer and Seabrook on black folks in the Confederate Army—W.G.].

‘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’ (Jim Garamone, ‘DOD Begins Implementing Naming Commission Recommendations’, defense.gov).

Now Trump is back in the White House, and his SecDef, Pete Hegseth, is doing some renaming of his own:

‘Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday signed a memorandum directing that Fort Liberty, North Carolina, be renamed to Fort Bragg.

‘The new name honors Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a native of Sabattus, Maine, who enlisted in July 1943 at age 23. He served during World War II with the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps. 

‘Bragg received the Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity and a Purple Heart for wounds sustained during the Battle of the Bulge. As part of his actions, Bragg saved a fellow soldier's life by commandeering an enemy German ambulance so that he could transport a wounded service member 20 miles to an allied hospital in Belgium. The ambulance was under enemy fire the entire time. 

‘Following WWII, Bragg returned home to Maine and married. He owned an auto body shop and later a company that moved buildings. In 1984, he also ran a business that operated a portable sawmill. Bragg died in January 1999 and is buried in Nobleboro, Maine’ (C. Todd Lopez, ‘Defense Secretary Renames Fort Liberty as Fort Bragg, Honoring WWII Soldier’, defense.gov). 

Regrettably, Hegseth and Trump are being disingenuous with this move.  Hegseth lays out his and Trump’s reasoning for it:

‘"I was honored to be able to put my signature on that [memorandum,] 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 briefing today in Stuttgart, Germany. "We're honored to support a private first class who received a Purple Heart and the Silver Star at the Battle of the Bulge."

‘ . . . Hegseth said the move to rename Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg was about restoring the legacy of the service members who trained and served there. 

‘"It's about that legacy; it's about the connection to the community, to those who've served," he said’ (Ibid.). 

If Hegseth and Trump really wanted ‘Fr Bragg back,’ if they wanted to reestablish the legacy that grew up at the base and to mend broken ties with the local community, they would have immediately gone back to the original dedication to Braxton Bragg, the Confederate general whose name adorned the base for decades before ol’ Liz Warren et al. intervened.  To rededicate it to another soldier named Bragg (who isn’t even a Southerner but a Yankee from Maine) is a dirty act of deceit.  With this move, Hegseth and Trump are in effect saying that the crackers in North Carolina and the rest Dixie are such retarded ignoramuses that they won’t be able to tell the difference between their own native-born General and a private from up North.  What kind of legacy are they establishing at Ft ‘Bragg’ with this new beginning grounded in dishonesty?

Trump’s willingness to challenge the entrenched interests in DC in his second term has astounded longtime political watchers.  But there is one interest group that he has thus far not dared to oppose:  the Dixie-haters.

Both Trump and Hegseth are dyed-in-the-wool Yankees, so their inconsideration towards the South vis-à-vis the new Ft Bragg is not any great surprise.  However, Southerners have been some of the strongest supporters of Trump and his MAGA project over the years.  If he wants us to continue to stick with him, he and his appointees will need to show more fortitude when it comes to defending the South, her history and culture, and her heroes.  That means giving us back the real Ft Bragg, Ft Hood, Ft Gordon, the Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington Cemetery, and all the rest of it.

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Originally posted at Identity Dixie, https://identitydixie.com/2025/02/19/an-underhanded-act-of-renaming-by-hegseth/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!