When the newly-minted Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, named Fort Liberty, North Carolina “Fort Bragg” after Roland L. Bragg, a native of Maine, who served in WWI, instead of the original namesake, many were quick to excuse it saying “he did the best he could” and, or “the law prevents any military installation to be named after a Confederate”.
Poppycock. This is a misapprehension of the enabling legislation.
The Willim M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2021 (“NDAA”)1[1], Section 370’s ten clauses established the Commission, its duties of making recommendations, the scope of what was to be removed, including exclusions for grave markers, and the Secretary of Defense’s responsibilities to implement, presumably legal, recommendations, including an implementation date.
The Naming Commission’s duties included making a list of military assets that were to be removed or renamed which “commemorate the Confederate State of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate State of America”.
Students of history may notice the striking similarities between this act and the establishment of the ‘Entartete Kunst’ or list of ‘degenerate art’ created by the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda.[2] In the first case memorials to “confederates” were eschewed, and in the latter, the same fate befell art of ethnically Jewish artists.
In the American example, the Naming Commission recommendations were completed in 3 documents, the first of which included the military installations, that Defense Secretary Hegseth[3] and candidate Trump promised to reinstate.
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