Fort Benning, the massive U.S. Army training base near Columbus, Georgia, will be formally renamed Fort Moore on Thursday after Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Moore.
Fort Benning and East Georgia’s Fort Gordon were identified by a commission assigned to recommend new names for military installations whose names were linked to the Confederacy. Fort Gordon will be renamed for former President and five-star General Dwight Eisenhower later this year. The official date has not been set.
Lt. Gen. Moore served in the Korean and Vietnam wars and coauthored the bestselling book, “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young.” Julia Moore supported military families back home during her husband’s service. Both are buried at Fort Benning.
A major U.S. Army training facility located just south of Columbus, Fort Benning is home to the Maneuver Center of Excellence, which includes Army’s infantry and armor training schools, as well as training centers for Army Rangers, office candidate school and an airborne school. It serves about 70,000 soldiers and civilians annually, according to the base web site, www.benning.army.mil
It began as Camp Benning in 1918, named for Henry Benning, a Confederate general in the Civil War. The name change will be marked in a 9 a.m. ceremony Thursday on the base at Doughboy Stadium. WTVM in Columbus will offer a livestream of the event.
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