By ALLEN BREED and MAKIYA SEMINERA Associated Press
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — The short-lived existence of Fort Liberty came to an end Friday when the nation’s largest Army installation officially returned to its former name: Fort Bragg.
Christened a century ago in honor of Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, the post in North Carolina was renamed in 2023 amid a drive to remove symbols of the Confederacy from public spaces.
But last month Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an order reinstating the Bragg name, only this time it will honor Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient from Maine. A few hundred people — made up of active servicemen and members of the public — gathered under black and yellow tents in front of the base’s command center headquarters to watch the renaming ceremony.
“Today we honor a hero worthy of the name Bragg,” Lt. Gen. Greg Anderson said during the ceremony. “It is synonymous with excellence.”
Among the attendees were several members of Bragg’s family, including his daughter, Diane Watts, and his granddaughter, Rebecca Amirpour, who spoke on the family’s behalf during the ceremony. Amirpour described her grandfather as a “strong, hardworking and proud” man who didn’t discuss his military service in World War II very openly.
Bragg, who served with the 17th Airborne Division, received the Silver Star and a Purple Heart for exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge. He was captured by Germans and commandeered an ambulance back to safety with a few wounded paratroopers, one of which survived, Anderson said.
“Rank doesn’t mean a thing when you’re in a tight spot,” said Amirpour, who was reading an excerpt from a letter her grandfather had written while recovering from an injury in an Army hospital.
Before his deployment, Bragg — of Nobleboro, Maine — trained at the North Carolina post, Watts said.
When the redesignation was announced Feb. 10, some critics saw it as a cynical sop to President Donald Trump, who criticized the removal of Confederate names as “woke” and made restoring them part of his reelection campaign.
Fort Bragg’s name being restored was like a “phoenix rising from the ashes,” said retired Mjr. Al Woodall, who served at Fort Bragg at several points during his service. Woodall, who is Black, said he wasn’t bothered by the installation’s initial name origin. Instead, he felt connected to the name because it had been that way for more than 100 years.
Carl Helton, who served at Fort Bragg from 1962 to 1964, said he was “ecstatic” about the name change. The 80-year-old, who traveled about an hour to attend the ceremony, refused to call the installation Fort Liberty after it was initially renamed, he said.
“It should have never been changed to start with. It was all political anyway,” Helton said.
Hegseth signed the order during a flight to Europe and said in a video, “That’s right. Bragg is back.”
It took an act of Congress — overriding Trump’s 2020 veto — to remove Confederate names from military installations, including nine Army facilities. Although several lawmakers complained about the switch back to Bragg and its potential costs, it is unclear whether any lawmaker intends to challenge it.
The name changing continues.
Hegseth announced this week that Georgia’s Fort Moore would revert back to Fort Benning. Originally named for Confederate Brig. Gen. Henry L. Benning, it will now honor Cpl. Fred G. Benning, a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross who served in France during World War I.
The Liberty-to-Bragg reversion was made without first consulting with Roland Bragg’s family, but his daughter was delighted by it.
The Army said in 2023 that changing the name to Fort Liberty would cost $8 million. North Carolina’s Department of Transportation said last month that it anticipated replacing dozens of roads signs at a cost of over $200,000.
Changing the name to Fort Liberty was a waste of money to begin with, said Mike D’Arcy, who served at Fort Bragg through the 1990s. He said a solution to having to pay more to revert Fort Bragg’s name should be cutting politician salaries instead.
To Woodall, the money spent on returning to Bragg is a well-spent investment.
“Just like coming back home again,” he said.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that Roland Bragg trained at the North Carolina post, not that he had no known connection to the post.