President Donald Trump appears to be playing both sides with his recent push to restore the names of Army bases previously honoring Confederate military figures.
Civil unrest in the wake of 2020’s nationwide race protests culminated in former President Joe Biden’s decision to rename nine Army bases named after Confederate figures. On Tuesday, Trump announced that the Department of Defense would revert seven of those bases back to their original names, following the restoration of Fort Bragg and Fort Benning to their original names earlier this year.
“That’s the name, and Fort Bragg it shall always remain. That’s never going to be happening again,” the president said in a speech celebrating the Army’s 250th anniversary at Fort Bragg on Tuesday. “We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort AP Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee.”
“We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change, and I’m superstitious, you know? I like to keep it going,” he continued.
However, Trump did not mention that these “renamed” bases would no longer honor Confederate figures; instead, they will be renamed after decorated veterans bearing the same surname as their original honorees, including three soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War.
He didn’t say specifically that Fort Lee would be named in honor of Medal of Honor recipient Pvt. Fitz Lee instead of Robert E. Lee. The same is true for Fort Hill, which is not being referred to as AP Hill.
In December 2020, Trump issued a rare veto of the must-pass fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, specifically objecting to its requirement to rename military bases that honored Confederate generals. Despite his opposition, the legislation became law and remains in effect. As a result, the administration was forced to identify other veterans with the same names to rename those bases without reversing the renaming process outright.
“That’s kind of a sneaky way to get around it and restore the names of the Army bases. I like it,” said a Republican strategist based in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect candidly on the situation. “It sort of is a big middle finger to the woke people who enacted these changes.”
Dennis Lennox, a GOP strategist from Michigan, also called the renaming “clever” and applauded the staff behind all the research.
“The renamings are probably the most clever thing that I’ve seen in a while. The person who did all the research deserves a big raise,” Lennox said. “At the end of the day, most people were almost certainly still referring to the bases by their former names. The only people who will care are family members of those whose names were used.”
The full list of renamed bases and their namesakes is below, per a U.S. Army spokesperson:
Fort Pickett (formerly Fort Barfoot) will be named in honor of Distinguished Service Cross recipient 1st Lt. Vernon W. Pickett for his extraordinary heroism during World War II. While pinned down by enemy machine gun fire, Pickett crawled forward and destroyed two enemy positions with grenades. After being captured, he escaped from a transport train with fellow [prisoners of war] and rejoined his unit before being killed in action.
Fort Hood (formerly Fort Cavazos) will be named in honor of Distinguished Service Cross recipient Col. Robert B. Hood for his extraordinary heroism during World War I. Amid intense shelling near Thiaucourt, France, then-Capt. Hood directed artillery fire under enfilading machine-gun fire. After his gun crew was lost to enemy fire, he rapidly reorganized and returned fire within minutes, restoring combat capability.
Fort Gordon (formerly Fort Eisenhower) will be named in honor of Medal of Honor recipient Master Sgt. Gary I. Gordon for his valor during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia. Gordon volunteered to be inserted to defend wounded crew members at a helicopter crash site and held off an advancing enemy force, protecting the pilot after exhausting all his ammunition.
Fort Lee (formerly Fort Gregg-Adams) will be named in honor of Medal of Honor recipient Pvt. Fitz Lee for his heroism during the Spanish-American War. During a coastal assault in Cuba, Lee voluntarily disembarked under direct enemy fire to rescue wounded comrades from the battlefield.
Fort Polk (formerly Fort Johnson) will be named in honor of Silver Star recipient Gen. James H. Polk for his gallantry in action as commanding officer of the 3rd Cavalry Group (Mechanized) during operations across Europe in World War II. Then-Col. Polk led reconnaissance and combat missions under fire, spearheading Third Army advances as part of Task Force Polk. He later served as commander in chief of U.S. Army Europe.
Fort Rucker (formerly Fort Novosel) will be named in honor of Distinguished Service Cross recipient Capt. Edward W. Rucker for extraordinary heroism in World War I. Flying deep behind enemy lines, then-1st Lt. Rucker and his fellow aviators engaged a numerically superior enemy force in a daring aerial battle over France, disrupting enemy movements and completing their mission against overwhelming odds.
Fort Anderson-Pinn-Hill (formerly Fort Walker) will be named in honor of Medal of Honor recipients Lt. Col. Edward Hill, 1st Sgt. Robert A. Pinn and Pvt. Bruce Anderson for extraordinary heroism during the Civil War. Then-Capt. Hill, Pinn and Anderson executed significant actions separately at Cold Harbor, Virginia; Chapin’s Farm, Virginia; and Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in support of the U.S. Army.
Forts Bragg and Benning were similarly reimagined earlier this year by naming them after non-Confederate soldiers bearing the same surname.
White House officials declined to say why the president failed to mention the bases’ new namesakes, even after the Army provided biographical information for all the nominees. They could not answer if the note had made it into the president’s prepared remarks.
Trump frequently floats off-script during his public speeches, and one White House aide guessed that the details might have appeared too “clunky” to work into the remarks.
Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA), a member of Biden’s commission to rename bases honoring Confederate figures, called Trump’s move a “slap in the face” and “political theater.”
“It’s profoundly disappointing,” McClellan, whose district includes the renamed Fort Lee, told the Progress-Index. “The Naming Commission went through a thorough, thoughtful process to choose the [previous] names.”
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Earlier this year, Hegseth reinstated the Fort Bragg name, but this time, it no longer commemorates Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. Instead, the installation now pays tribute to Pfc. First Class Roland L. Bragg, a decorated World War II hero who received both the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his bravery in the Battle of the Bulge.
Responding to the move, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, remarked that Hegseth had “not violated the letter of the law, but he has violated its spirit.”