Work begins for removal of Confederate names from DOD assets

The Pentagon ordered subordinate organizations to start working on the removal of names and artifacts associated with the Confederacy. Nine Army installations in the southern states and a couple of Navy ships will be renamed as a part of this order. The associated names must be removed from correspondence and other items related to the impacted installations. The installations must also work with their localities to remove the impacted names from street signs related to the installation.

From Stars and Stripes:

The items marked for change include hundreds of signs, roads, memorials and buildings on U.S. military posts in the United States, Germany and Japan. It includes items at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., including paintings and building that honor Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, an 1829 West Point graduate who also served as the institution’s superintendent before resigning his U.S. commission to helm the Confederate Army in the Civil War. It also recommended the removal of a prominent Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The commission recommended the Navy rename the USS Chancellorsville, a guided-missile cruiser named for a Civil War battle that the Confederates won, and the USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship named for a Confederate naval commander.

While the commission declined to recommend new names for those ships, it made recommendations for the Army installations that it determined should be renamed.

Commissioners recommended to rename Fort Bragg, N.C., to Fort Liberty, Fort Polk, La., to Fort Johnson, Fort Benning, Ga., to Fort Moore, Fort Gordon, Ga., to Fort Eisenhower, Fort A.P. Hill, Va., to Fort Walker, Fort Hood, Texas, to Fort Cavazos, Fort Picket, Va., to Fort Barfoot, Fort Rucker, Ala., to Fort Novosel, and Fort Lee, Va., to Fort Gregg-Adams. The commission estimated those name changes would cost some $21 million, with Fort Bragg’s change costing the most at about $6.3 million.

Defense officials have suggested the processes to change base names could prove tedious because they will require changes to thousands of items from buildings and road signs to business cards, letterheads and brochures. Officials have also said they would need to work with local and state officials to change signs and other items outside of the military’s gates.

In 2020, top defense officials, including then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper, first began seriously considering the renaming of Army bases honoring Confederate leaders as anti-racism demonstrations spread nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May by a then-Minneapolis police officer.

The Naming Commission was established in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual must-pass defense policy bill, and the group spent 18 months studying the issue before providing its recommendations. Congress instructed Austin to pause 90 days after the commission’s reports were made public and then implement recommendations with which he agreed.

Stars and Stripes has additional information on this story.

Category: Big Army, Big Pentagon, Military issues, Navy