This story was updated on Friday, April 18 at 12:24 p.m.
Less than two years after changing the name of Columbus military base Fort Benning to Fort Moore, the U.S. military held a ceremony this week to restore the base’s name, this time dedicating it after a different and less controversial figure.
A renaming ceremony took place at McGinnis-Wickam Hall at Fort Benning on Wednesday. The event featured a colors casing and uncasing, as well as the unveiling of a memorial plaque.
While the name Benning returned to the base, it is now named after Cpl. Fred G. Benning, a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross who served in France during World War I.
“After the enemy killed his platoon commander and disabled two senior non-commissioned officers, CPL Benning took command of the surviving 20 men of his company, and courageously led them through heavy fire to their assigned objective in support of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive,” read a March memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Fort Benning, first established in 1918, was initially named after Henry L. Benning, a Confederate officer during the American Civil War who opposed the abolitionist movement to end slavery.
In 2023, after several calls to strip the names of Confederate soldiers and officers from military bases, the Biden administration announced the decision to rename the Georgia fort after Lt. Gen. Harold Gregory Moore Jr. and his wife, Julia.
Moore was a distinguished military leader who served in World War II, the Korean War and the Battle of Ia Drang in the Vietnam War. The Army official was also honored with several accolades commemorating his time in service, including the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross.
Julia Moore successfully lobbied the Pentagon to adopt a policy of notifying military families of war casualties in person rather than by telegram, according to the AP.
Last month, Hegseth reversed the renaming of the Columbus military base back to Benning. This came a month after the Trump official signed an order restoring the name of a North Carolina base back to Fort Bragg, which had been renamed Fort Liberty in 2023.
“Since 1918 – the same year of CPL Benning’s heroic actions – the Anny has trained and prepared U.S. Army Soldiers and infantrymen for war in the red clay near Columbus, Georgia,” Hegseth wrote in his March memo. “CPL Benning was the living embodiment of the Infantryman’s Creed, as he never failed his country’s trust and fought to the objective to triumph for his unit and his country. This directive honors the warfighter ethos and recognizes the heroes who have trained at the installation for decades and will continue to train on its storied ranges.”
