"Camp" Bragg was named for Braxton Bragg, an Army artillery commander and West Point graduate who later fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Image: RedCom Productions/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA bipartisan panel appointed by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and both houses of Congress will study how to replace the names of Confederate generals at certain military installations and properties.
Austin appointed: retired Navy Adm. Michelle Howard, the first Black woman to command a Navy ship; retired former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Bob Neller; Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule; and Kori Schake, a foreign- and defense-policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Sen. Jack Reed, D.- Rhode Island, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, appointed retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick – the first Black graduate of the U.S. Military Academy to serve as commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. Sen. James Inhofe, R.-Oklahoma, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, appointed Jerry Buchanan, a former Army drill sergeant who is now a business executive in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Rep. Adam Smith, D.-Washington, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, appointed Lonnie G. Bunch III, who oversees the Smithsonian Institution’s museums and libraries. Rep. Mike Rogers, R.-Alabama, the committee’s ranking member, selected Rep. Austin Scott, R.-Georgia, whose district includes Robins and Moody Air Force bases.
The panel’s work will consist of assessing the cost, procedures, criteria and time line associated with removing the names from Forts Hood, Bragg, Polk, and other installations.
