Break It Down!
In his novel, “Requiem for a Nun,” William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity.” The story has been described as a haunting exploration of the past on the present. Born near the end of the 19th century Faulkner grew up in Oxford…Mississippi, listening to and being influenced by stories told by his elders — stories that incorporated the Civil War, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Faulkner family. Stipulating those facts, it’s easy enough to see how Faulkner’s world view could be predicated on powerful elements that unfolded a generation or two before he was born.
Having said all that, let me be clear, this post is in no way related to Faulkner. Rather, it’s about contemporary culture warriors, unable, or unwilling, or both, to divest themselves from the past. A past they never wanted to relinquish, and one they brought back, at the first available opportunity.
So, in case you haven’t heard, Donald Trump, while visiting Fort Bragg yesterday, announced, “We are going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee. We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change.” In March, Pete Hegseth changed back the name Fort Liberty, the nation’s largest Army base, to Fort Bragg. In April, he changed Fort Moore back to Fort Benning.
Looked at on its face, this grand renaming scheme boils down to a game of juvenile legerdemain. In 2023, the Biden administration changed the name of several military installations that had be named in honor of Confederate icons. When one considers the Confederacy was composed of states that not only seceded from America, but fought America in a war, to do so, opting not to honor heroes of your vanquished enemy seems like a reasonable and logical thing to do.
Of course, adhering to policy prescriptions based on reasonableness and logic could never prevail in this regime. One might even consider it a telling matter that this administration would expend so much time, energy, and money to reclaim base appellations with the surnames of Confederates. Alas, there was one little sticking point. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, had approved ditching the Confederate connection. In order to give the installations their old name, they had to scrub the services to find other individuals with those last names. For example, instead of Confederate General Braxton Bragg, Fort Bragg is now, so we are told, named for Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient from Maine.
And so it goes. There’s a similar story supporting each of the renamed-to-their-old-name military installations. This is yet another example of the lengths this regime and its supporters will go to retain its connection to a racist and bigoted past. William Faulkner would certainly understand, if not appreciate, this compulsion to go “Back To The Future!”
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For more detailed information on a variety of aspects related to this post, consult the links below.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/10/politics/army-restore-confederate-names-military-bases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner
BREAK IT DOWN! 