Racism comes in countless forms. It is an older-than-dirt, can’t-be-killed, sick-to-its-core tree with many branches. It is one person, or a group, or an entire nation believing themselves superior to one person, or a group, or an entire nation, because the latter is different from the former.
As an example of racism, what I would like to explore today concerns the renaming of American military bases, specifically, Georgia’s Fort Benning and North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, although there are others I could also name.
Fort Benning was established in 1918 as a training base for World War I soldiers. It was named for Confederate General Henry Benning, who, before the Civil War, was an Associate Justice of Georgia’s Supreme Court. He was also an ardent secessionist and the owner of 89 slaves on his 3,265-acre Georgia plantation. He was an able tactician and became a Brigadier General during the War.
At the 1861 Georgia secession convention, which he briefly chaired, Benning said,
“What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery… If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished. By the time the North shall have attained the power, the black race will be in a large majority, and then we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that?”
In 1918, at the request of the Columbus, Georgia, Rotary Club, the U.S. Department of War named the newly established World War I training camp for Henry Benning.
In 2023, the Biden Administration wanted to purge military installations of any connection to slavery and Confederate assets.
Which brings us to Lieutenant General Hal Moore and his wife Julie, who, all by herself, changed a significant part of the culture of the U.S. Army.
General Moore served with distinction in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. He won the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest battle award after the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the 1965, four-day battle of Ia Drang Valley, one of the fiercest battles of the entire war.
Moore was also one of the creators of the air-mobile concept and the all-volunteer army. Toward the end of his 32-year military career, the Army appointed him to the post of Deputy Chief of Staff at the Joint Chiefs level.
Perhaps eclipsing the accomplishments of her husband, it was Moore’s wife, Julie, who did more for Army wives and families than anyone else.
From the Civil War all the way to Vietnam, the Army informed families of a soldier’s death by telegrams and taxi-cabs.
As CBS News chronicled on Sunday Morning last Sunday, Julie Moore changed that heartless, dispassionate formula for one of compassion and service. As Elaine Quiano reported, Julie knew her husband Hal, a Lieutenant Colonel at the time, was part of the ongoing Ia Drang battle, and, as she described in a letter, a taxi driver pulled up to her house: “When he rang the bell I decided not to answer; that way, everything would be all right,” she wrote. “I finally said to myself, ‘Come on, Julie, you have to face up to what’s to come, so go answer the door.”
It turned out the driver only wanted directions.
Her son, Greg, said, “At that moment, she knew what it felt like to get that telegram, and she never wanted to have anybody else get that telegram and not have somebody physically with them.”
So, Julie Moore made a deal with the local Western Union office: they would call her whenever a telegram came.
The 2002 movie “We Were Soldiers” portrayed how Julie Moore would rush to comfort the widows.
Thus began her passionate quest to have combat death notices delivered by caring service members who would also deliver needed assistance in the days following.
Because of Julie Moore, since the late 1960s, trained personnel, including chaplains, have notified thousands of families about the death of a loved one in the service of the nation. They are followed within 24 hours by a visit from a survivor assistance officer who will help with anything the family needs in the immediate aftermath of the worst news they could possibly get.
Julie Moore never stopped fighting for compassion.
And that is why in 2023, the Biden Administration renamed the Fort named for slaveholder Henry Benning to Fort Moore in honor of the patriotic contributions of Hal and Julie Moore.
But that is not the end of the story.
In 2025, just a few months ago, one of the first things the new Secretary of Defense, the incompetent and unqualified, but very loyal-to-Trump Pete Hegseth, did was to restore the name of Fort Benning. Gone was Fort Moore, along with the virtue of Hal and Julie, but even Hegseth could not advertise he was bringing back Henry Benning (even though he was). No, he reached down into the nation’s war dead and found another Benning. This time, Army Cpl. Fred G. Benning, who fought in World War I. And, yes, he was a hero, having won the Distinguished Service Cross (just like Hal Moore) for exceptional bravery in 1918 just south of Exermont, France.
Hegseth gave no explanation as to why he deep-sixed Fort Moore. This is just a guess, but I think it might have had something to do with Fort Moore being a Biden Administration change. Couldn’t have that. Or, it could be that the relationship to slavery and racism was too powerful to lose among the faithful. We might never know.
He has done the same thing with all the other Army posts named after Confederate secessionists and slavers.
North Carolina’s Fort Bragg had been named for the slave-owning Confederate General Braxton Bragg. It briefly became Fort Liberty under the Biden Administration, a situation Hegseth immediately corrected. In March, he brought back the name Fort Bragg, this time saying he had renamed the Fort after Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a native of Maine, who, in July 1943 at age 23, enlisted in World War II and won a Silver Star at the Battle of the Bulge.
There may have been other Braggs he could have chosen, but he picked Roland. Perhaps he couldn’t resist the story of the doomed warrior Roland at the bridge in La Chanson de Roland, but even La Chanson de Roland might be a little too high-brow for the less-than-scholarly Secretary Hegseth.
Regardless, these insensitive re-renamings show the world the deep racism that runs through the blood of Trump and his team of sycophants. It’s so insidious, most Americans don’t even notice it anymore.
Having served their purpose, I would wager that the names of Pfc. Roland L. Bragg and Army Cpl. Fred G. Benning have seen their day and have now been confined to some dank and dark closet in the Pentagon’s basement, perhaps right beside the portraits now facing the wall of the former Secretary of the Army Mark Esper and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, who, according to Donald Trump, was “a woke train wreck.”
He ordered their portraits removed less than two hours after being sworn in for his second term.
