The U.S. Army base formerly known as Fort Bragg will once again bear its old name — but this time but in honor of a new namesake.
The Fayetteville, N.C. base was originally named after the controversial Confederate general Braxton Bragg, and bore that title for a century. The Defense Department changed it to Fort Liberty in 2023 as part of a broader initiative to rename nearly a dozen military installations that had previously honored Confederate leaders.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum changing the base's name once again, this time to Fort Roland L. Bragg.
"That's right: Bragg is back," Hegseth said as he signed the document on board a military aircraft, in a video shared by the Department of Defense (DoD).
Bragg, a private first class with the 17th Airborne Division, isn't exactly a household name. The DoD describes him as a "World War II hero who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge."
The memorandum that Hegseth signed suggests the name change is both an ode to Bragg's service and the legacy of the military base at which he was stationed.
"This directive honors the personal courage and selfless service of all those who have trained to fight and win our nation's wars, including Pfc. Bragg, and is in keeping with the installation's esteemed and storied history," it reads.
Debra Sokoll, one of Bragg's daughters, told NPR on Tuesday morning that she was surprised to learn of the renaming just a few minutes earlier when another reporter called to ask about it.
Her husband, Chris Sokoll, said someone from the Army had left them a message on Monday night, but they hadn't yet returned the call.
"He'd be very proud," she said.
Who was Roland Bragg?
Bragg was born in Sabattus, Maine, in 1923, and after joining the Army was assigned to the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division, according to the DoD.
He was stationed at Fort Bragg during World War II and ended up fighting in Europe.
He earned a Silver Star for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity," and a Purple Heart for "wounds sustained," during the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive on the Western Front from December 1944 through January 1945.
"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," the memorandum says.
Bragg's daughter, Linda French, said in his 1999 obituary that he was briefly captured by the Germans but released because he and his captor were both Masons.
"The guy said, 'Hit me over the head and take off,' and he did and took off with an ambulance," she said.
The vehicle came under heavy fire from both sides, Sokoll said.
"The Americans were shooting at him because he had a German Jeep, and the Germans were shooting at him because he stole their jeep, and he still made it to the other side," she added.
After the war, Bragg married and worked as a mechanic and building mover. For decades, he didn't know if any of the other passengers had survived the ambulance ordeal, which is recounted in John Eisenhower's 1995 book The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge.
Sokoll said a man from California called her dad shortly in his final years: "He said, 'I want to meet you, you saved my life.' " Bragg flew out West to meet him.
Sokoll, 72, says her father had PTSD and didn't speak much about the war until after that point. He died of cancer soon afterward, at age 75, leaving behind a wife, three daughters and 11 grandchildren, according to his obituary.
She has fond childhood memories of taking skating trips with her dad, where they would roast marshmallows and hot dogs out on the ice.
"He always took time for his kids," she added.
How do these name changes work?
In 2021 — in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd — Congress established a commission to rename DoD properties that were named after Confederate leaders.
Trump vetoed the defense policy bill that contained that provision, in part because of the renaming aspect, but Congress voted to override him with considerable bipartisan support.
The 2022 Naming Commission Final Report recommended new names for nine military bases, one of which was Fort Bragg.
The report says its original namesake, a slave-owning plantation owner and senior Confederate Army officer, is "considered one of the worst generals of the Civil War."
"Most of the battles he was involved in ended in defeat and resulted in tremendous losses for the Confederate Army; highly consequential to the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy," it reads. "Bragg was temperamental, a harsh disciplinarian, and widely disliked in the pre-Civil War U.S. Army and within the Confederate Army by peers and subordinates alike throughout his career."
The commission used several criteria to narrow down a list of thousands of replacement names for each base. Notably, the criteria precluded "substitute" names, "e.g. Edwin Bragg for Braxton Bragg."
It ultimately recommended that the base be named Liberty, "after one of America's core values." That change officially took effect in June 2023, though it was slower to catch on informally.
The change became a Republican talking point on the presidential campaign trail, with Trump vowing at an October 2024 town hall in Fayetteville that he would change the name back to Fort Bragg.
"We did win two world wars from Fort Bragg, right?" he said at the time. "We're going to get it back."
And on his first day on the job in late January, Hegseth made a point to refer to two bases by their original names, Fort Bragg and Fort Benning — a sign of what could be to come.
Ironically for an administration purportedly focused on cost-cutting, the renaming process — including physically repainting signs — is a pricey undertaking, especially at one of the world's largest military installations by population. Officials said in 2023 that the Fort Liberty renaming would ultimately cost around $8 million.
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