The latest front in the culture war is renaming U.S. Army forts that were named after Confederate generals. I think such a move is long overdue.
Consider Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the home of the vaunted 82nd Airborne Division. It is named after Braxton Bragg. Not only did Bragg commit treason by taking up arms against the United States, but he was not very good at it. He won precisely one battle, the battle of Chickamauga. He lost every other battle in which he was engaged.
So, let’s change Fort Bragg to Fort Eubanks. Ray Eubanks was a sergeant from Sugar Hill, North Carolina who fought in the Pacific during World War II. During the fighting on New Guinea, an island in the Pacific, an American unit was surrounded by Japanese soldiers. Sgt. Eubanks’ unit was ordered to relieve the surrounded Americans. Eubanks’ squad drew the mission of taking a hill protected by a much larger contingent of Japanese soldiers.
Sgt. Eubanks maneuvered his squad within 30 yards of the Japanese position. He then took two of his men to outflank the enemy and got within 15 yards of the Japanese. He then brought effective fire onto the entrenched enemy. During the firefight, his rifle was struck and disabled by an enemy bullet. So, under enemy fire, he ran those last 15 yards to the entrenched Japanese soldiers and used his rifle as a club to kill four of them before he was killed.
His squad was so inspired by his heroics that they charged the Japanese lines. They killed 45 of the enemy.
Sgt. Ray Eubanks was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroics.
If the fort named for the treasonous, failed general were renamed for a true American hero, perhaps the troops stationed there would read St. Ray Eubanks’ story and be similarly inspired.
Melissa C. Batson
Monroe
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