The commission tasked with overseeing the renaming of U.S. military assets has submitted the final portion of its report ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline.
The Naming Commission, officially named the Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America, held a Sept. 13 virtual media briefing to release the closing section of the report and take questions.
The commission had released Final Report to Congress, Part I: United States Army Bases on Aug. 8 followed by Final Report to Congress, Part II: U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Naval Academy on Aug. 29.
Two Georgia posts — Fort Gordon and Fort Benning — are among those to be renamed. The others are Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Bragg, N.C. Fort Rucker, Ala.; Fort Polk, La.; and Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia.
Final Report to Congress, Part III: Remaining Department of Defense Assets covered items not included in the earlier reports, including the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. It also includes estimated costs for renaming all assets.
The briefing was led by commission vice chairman Retired Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule. Joining him were commission members Retired Lt. Gen. Tom Bostick and Lawrence Romo. Other commission members are Adm. Michelle Howard, chair of the Naming Commission, Jerry Buchannan, Retired Gen. Robert Neller and Dr. Kori Schake. The only elected official on the commission is Georgia Congressman Austin Scott (R-GA8).
“We plan to send part three to Congress in the coming weeks ahead of our October 1 deadline,” Seidule said. “We just gave our final brief to the House and Senate Armed Services committees this afternoon, during which time we provided an overview of all our recommendations today, including those in the third part of the report.”
The estimated cost to complete the entire process is just over $62.4 million. That includes $21 million for recommendations in part one and $451,000 for those in part two.
Among the recommendations that will be included in part three are that the Secretary of Defense authorize all director rename assets under their control, such as buildings, street and digital assets, and to remove smaller assets, such as portraits, awards and plaques.
Turning his attention to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, Seidule said the commissioners found it “problematic” from top to bottom.
“The Confederate monument at Arlington clearly commemorates the Confederacy. We recommend that the statue atop the monument should be removed, all bronze elements on the monument should be deconstructed and removed, leaving the granite plinth and foundation in place,” he said.
The monument includes a bronze woman, standing on a 32-foot pedestal, holding a laurel wreath, plow stock and pruning hook with the Biblical inscription “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.” Below that are 14 shields representing the 13 Confederate states and Maryland, although that state did not join the Confederacy.
In May, the commission released the list of named it recommended to rename the Army posts.
The commission recommended Fort Gordon be renamed Fort Eisenhower, in honor of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was also a four-star general in the U.S. Army.
Fort Gordon was founded as Camp Gordon in 1941. It 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.
The commission recommended renaming Fort Benning, Ga. to Fort Moore in honor of Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife Julia Moore. Fort Benning was named after Henry L. Benning, a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. He was also a judge on the Georgia Supreme Court.
The commission recommended renaming Fort Bragg, N.C. to Fort Liberty; Fort A.P. Hill, Va. To Fort Walker, Fort Hood, Texas to Fort Cavazos, Fort Lee, Va. To Fort Gregg-Adams, Fort Pickett, Va. to Fort Barfoot, Fort Polk, La. To Fort Johnson and Fort Rucker, Ala. To Fort Novosel.
The commission did not recommend names for the approximately 1,100 assets listed in the closing section of the report.
The inventory included 26 items at Fort Gordon, beginning with the name of the installation.
The 25 other items, buildings, signs and memorials, include the Gordon Club, Gordon Terrace housing area, Gordon Conference and Catering Center, Gordon Lake and the golf course and water towers one and three.
The report will also recommend the Department of Defense work with local museums, historical societies and veterans’ organization to donate items those groups may wish to have. Any unclaimed assets will be disposed of.
The Naming Commission was created in 2020 and met for the first time the following year. Since then, members have visited each post to be renamed to meet with local military, government and community leaders. The public was invited to submit suggestions via a website for the Army posts and more than 34,000 names were received. Commissioners and staff reviewed the names and inventory of assets to rename to create its final report.
Their work ends on Oct. 1.
Seidel said serving on the commission has been the honor of his career.
“I will leave the Commission, the one October when we poof go away, knowing that we have accomplished the mission set by Congress, and that we are honored to serve together. We are honored to have done it unanimously on a bipartisan nature to find names that are inspirational to all of us, and that they will no longer be names that divide us as a nation. So yeah, I’m incredibly proud.”
Bostick added, “Ty knows this better than anybody, been looking at these base names for a long, long time and the timing was right. I don’t know what caused the Congress to say now is the time. But when you look at what happened with George Floyd and other issues, I think as we went to these installations, not everybody agreed that it should change, at least in the first but they knew that the law said it would change.”
Romo said he was impressed by the commission’s spirit of cooperation.
“We brought different experiences to the table. We blended together. Bipartisan, Democrats, Republicans, and it was just an excellent, excellent group to work with. We had an outstanding army staff that supported us. This was one of my greatest highlights so far in my life, and I am honored to have served our country on this commission,” he said
Part one and two are posted to the commission’s website https://www.thenamingcommission.gov/home. Part three will be added after it is submitted to Congress.
The Secretary of Defense has until Jan. 1, 2024, to implement the recommendations.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
