Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a commission to rename the military bases named for those that served in the Confederacy.
Among those under consideration for renaming are 10 U.S. Army installations, including Daleville’s Fort Rucker, named for Confederate Gen. Edmund W. Rucker, who would later become an early Birmingham industrialist.
In an interview with Enterprise newspaper The Southeast Sun’s Michelle Mann, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) said he would oppose efforts to rename Fort Rucker.
“We’re going to fight that,” Tuberville told the Sun. “You can’t destroy history, you can’t change it. We need to learn from history. I believe in our history and how we got here, right or wrong. We build off of history and changing the things that we need to change, but we don’t need to be destroying history. You have to learn from it.”
According to reports, the commission empaneled by Austin will submit recommendations to Congress by October 2022 and the Pentagon must implement the changes by Jan. 1, 2024, according to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.
The base-renaming provision was opposed by then-President Donald Trump, who vetoed the bill. However, Congress later overrode his veto.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
