The Pentagon announced Monday that Fort Moore, formerly named Fort Benning for a Confederate general, will again be named Fort Benning, although it will now honor a different Benning.
Defense Secretary Hegseth in a statement said the base will now honor Cpl. Fred G. Benning, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism in action during World War I, when he served in the U.S. Army in France in 1918. Benning died in 1974. The base was originally named for Lt.-Gen. Henry Benning, a Confederate general and Southern secessionist who opposed freeing slaves.
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A congressionally mandated commission, the Naming Commission, recommended in 2022 that nine bases, including Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, should receive new names.
Eight of the bases were subsequently renamed for people, and Fort Bragg was given the name Fort Liberty.
In 2023, Fort Benning was renamed Fort Moore to honor a couple, Hal and Julie Moore, marking the first time a military spouse had received such a recognition. The Naming Commission recommended the Moores because of Hal’s 32-year-career in the Army and Julie’s support as a spouse, as well as their devotion to helping Army families even after they retired.
“Their story is representative of millions of other military families throughout our history, who have often endured many travels and movements, putting the nation’s needs ahead of their personal preferences,” the Naming Commission’s final report said of the Moores.
While Hal was deployed, Julie took issue with the impersonal telegram notifications that delivered the news of the death of a loved one, so she took it upon herself to accompany cabbies to deliver notices and offer condolences. Her efforts led to the creation of the modern casualty notification teams who do this difficult job today.
“She raised hell,” Hal Moore said in an oral history kept in the Vietnam Archives at Texas Tech University. “She raised a fuss all the way up to stop that inhumane practice.”
Defense Secretary Hegseth signaled on his first day at the Pentagon that the name changes were coming when he referred to Fort Liberty and Fort Moore by their original names of Fort Bragg and Fort Benning.
After he directed Fort Liberty to be renamed Fort Bragg, Hegseth said, “There’s a reason I said Bragg and Benning when I walked into the Pentagon on Day One. But it’s not just Bragg and Benning. There are a lot of other service members that have connections, and we’re going to do our best to restore it.”
Steve Moore, one of Hal and Julie Moore’s sons, wrote an essay in a military newsletter, the War Horse, after Fort Bragg was renamed, expressing disappointment about the possibility the Pentagon would restore Fort Benning’s name.
“Those who advocate for changing the name to honor a person solely because they happen to be named “Benning” ignore the values and character of Hal and Julie Moore as well as their courage, competency, and dedication to the nation and Army families,” Steve Moore wrote.
