Fort Bragg changed its name twice because two different branches of government acted on it two years apart. In 2023, the Army renamed the North Carolina post Fort Liberty to comply with a 2021 law requiring Confederate names to be stripped from military property. In early 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum restoring the Fort Bragg name, but reassigned it to honor Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper, rather than the Confederate general the post was originally named for.
The 2023 Change to Fort Liberty
The first renaming was not a Pentagon decision. Congress ordered it. Section 370 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 created the Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense, known as the Naming Commission, and directed it to identify every Defense Department asset that commemorated the Confederacy or anyone who voluntarily served with it. The law gave the Secretary of Defense until January 1, 2024, to implement the commission’s recommendations.1U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Armed Services Committees Leadership Announces Selections for Commission on Removing Confederate Symbols and Names from U.S. Military Assets
Fort Bragg was in scope because of its namesake. Braxton Bragg, born in Warrenton, North Carolina, served in the Mexican-American War and then became a Confederate general during the Civil War. His own officers openly criticized his leadership, and he lost several significant engagements, including the Battle of Chattanooga. The post had carried his name since it was redesignated Fort Bragg in September 1922, after opening as Camp Bragg in August 1918.
On June 2, 2023, the installation officially became Fort Liberty. The commission chose “Liberty” deliberately: rather than swap in another individual, it picked a value, which sidestepped any argument over whose personal legacy belonged on the gate. Fort Bragg was one of nine Army installations renamed under the same process.
The 2025 Return to Fort Bragg
Fort Liberty lasted less than two years. On February 10, 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum, while aboard a military transport flight, directing that the installation be renamed Fort Bragg.2The United States Army. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Renames Fort Liberty to Fort Roland L. Bragg The formal redesignation ceremony took place on March 7, 2025, at the XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters.3The United States Army. Back to Bragg: Fort Bragg Redesignation Ceremony
The key move was legal rather than nostalgic. The 2021 law barred names honoring Confederate figures, so the Pentagon kept the familiar place name and reattached it to someone else. The new namesake is Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, born June 11, 1923, in Nobleboro, Maine. He enlisted in July 1943 and served with the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division.4My Army Benefits. Fort Liberty Becomes Fort Bragg, Renamed for Battle of Bulge Hero
During the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945, Bragg and four fellow paratroopers were wounded and captured by German forces outside Bastogne, Belgium. At a German aid station, the prisoners persuaded a guard to let them go on the condition that Bragg knock him unconscious to make the escape look like a struggle. Bragg then put on the guard’s uniform, commandeered a German ambulance, loaded the four wounded Americans, and drove roughly 20 miles back to Allied lines under heavy fire. He received the Silver Star and the Purple Heart for those actions, returned to Maine after the war, and died in 1999 at age 75.4My Army Benefits. Fort Liberty Becomes Fort Bragg, Renamed for Battle of Bulge Hero
Hegseth applied the same approach across the board. By mid-2025, he had restored the original names at all nine installations the Naming Commission had renamed, each time pairing the familiar surname with a different American service member.
What the Two Changes Cost the Installation
Each renaming required replacing every sign, vehicle decal, letterhead, and digital reference on one of the Army’s largest posts. The 2023 switch to Fort Liberty was estimated at between $6.3 million and $8 million for Fort Bragg alone, with the Naming Commission projecting more than $21 million across all nine installations. State and local governments paid on top of that: the North Carolina Department of Transportation spent $163,000 replacing 86 road signs around Fayetteville pointing to the post. The 2025 reversal set off a second round of the same work.
For the roughly 57,000 service members and their families stationed at Fort Bragg, the two changes meant updated IDs, new signage, revised letterhead, and the ordinary friction of rebranding the same place twice inside two years. Whether the current name holds depends on future administrations and whether Congress revisits the statute.