Tweets halt renaming Army bases

President Donald Trump shocked senior Defense Department leaders June 10 with a series of tweets opposing the renaming of Army installations named after Confederate generals. Two days earlier, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Defense Secretary (SECDEF) Mark Esper declared their openness to changing the names of the 10 installations after years of DoD leadership not budging on the issue. It came to a screeching halt on Wednesday afternoon. Military leadership “is shocked,” said a former Trump official, who remains close to the Pentagon. “They thought this was a no-brainer.” However, a person close to the White House said Trump still has confidence in SECDEF. The Army bases in question, all in Southern states, are Fort Bragg, N.C.; Forts Benning and Gordon in Georgia; Forts Pickett, A.P. Hill and Lee in Virginia; Fort Polk and Camp Beauregard in Louisiana; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Rucker, Ala. (Source: Politico 06/10/20) Fort Rucker was named for Edmund Rucker, a colonel in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanding a cavalry brigade in the battles of Franklin and Nashville, during which he was wounded and captured. He was given the honorary rank of general after the Civil War and settled in Birmingham to become a business leader in the late 1800s, and one of the major players in the city’s rise to becoming an industrial powerhouse.