When Fort Gordon becomes Fort Eisenhower, there could be some very notable attendees at the ceremony.
Members of the Eisenhower family are working with the installation on the ceremony, said Lesli Ellis-Wouters, chief of Public Affairs, U.S. Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon.
“We are coordinating with the family on finalizing a date with the family, and it is our wish that they would attend,” Ellis-Wouters said. “…they will be involved for sure in the ceremony.”
A date in October is being looked because it would coincide with former President Dwight Eisenhower’s birthday, which is Oct. 14, Ellis-Wouters, said. They hope to finalize a date as soon as possible and go through the appropriate channels to get it approved.
Fort Gordon is one of nine installations being renamed. As previously reported by The Augusta Press, on Oct. 6, 2022, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder announced Oct. 6 that Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III issued a “Memorandum on Implementation of the Naming Commission’s Recommendations.”
“I concur with all of the Naming Commission’s recommendations, including the renaming plan. In the words of Admiral Michelle M. Howard, the Naming Commission’s chair, the commission’s goal was to inspire Service members and military communities ‘with names or values that have meaning,’” Austin said in the memo.
Besides Fort Gordon, the other installations being renamed are Fort Benning, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Rucker, Alabama, Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia.
The commission released a list of recommended names for the Army posts in May 2022. Fort Gordon was recommended to be renamed Fort Eisenhower in honor of former President Eisenhower, who was a four-star general in the U.S. Army. The medical center on Fort Gordon is already named after him.
“I absolutely think it is a great idea to rename this fort and do away with the name of Gordon,” said Retired Brig. Gen. Jeff Foley, of Evans, who commanded Fort Gordon from 2007 to 2010 in a May article in The Augusta Press. “I am a big fan of that.”
Fort Gordon was founded in 1941 as Camp Gordon in 1941. The installation was named for John Brown Gordon, a major general in the Confederate Army who later served as governor of Georgia and as a U.S. senator.
Renaming the installation means having to change signage. Ellis-Wouters, said she didn’t know the exact cost for the installation, but for all nine installations being renamed, it’s an estimated cost of $39 million for the Army total. She added a working group has been created to determine the different signage and other items that need to be renamed, and then items will be prioritized based on the budget.
“We’re looking forward (to the renaming),” Ellis-Wouters, said. “We’re transforming to the Cyber Center of Excellence, building new campuses and this (is a part of the transformation)
As part of the renaming, a contest is being held to create a new logo to accompany the change to Fort Eisenhower.
“We are looking for a creative and unique logo that represents its namesake and our cyberspace environment, multi-service military installation,” Ellis-Wouters said. “The winning logo design will be used in various ways to represent our brand and promote our post, to include on our website, in marketing materials, outreach merchandise, social media and signage. Overall, the winning logo will be an essential element of our brand identity, and we will use it to create a consistent and cohesive visual representation of our installation across all platforms.”
According to a news release from the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence, the logo needs to include the name “Team Eisenhower” and should represent the cyberspace area, which includes signal, cyber, electromagnetic warfare operations, and public affairs.
Details on the contest can be found here.
