Raleigh ER doctor and veteran reflects on significance of Fort Bragg name: 'Symbolized patriotism'

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Monday that he is changing the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, the reception from those ABC11 spoke with was mostly, though not all, favorable..

The Army post's original namesake caused heavy controversy, as Gen. Braxton Bragg was both a slave owner and a widely criticized Confederate General during the Civil War.

Named Fort Bragg for more than a century, the Pentagon announced it would be one of nine military installations across the country that would be receiving new names amid a racial reckoning in the United States. The naming commission officially changed Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty in the summer of 2023.

To so many soldiers who trained and served there though, the name of the post meant something entirely unrelated to Braxton Bragg.

"There's nobody alive today that was alive during the Civil War. It's always been about the history of the people that have served," retired Battalion Flight Surgeon Josh McConkey told ABC11.

Fort Bragg brought McConkey to North Carolina, where he would later retire from the Army and raise his three children with his wife. He works as an ER doctor in the Triangle now, while also serving in the Air Force Reserve.

To him, the meaning of the name "Fort Bragg" has nothing to do with a Confederate general who died in the 1800s.

"It's really the training, the history, the Airborne operations," McConkey said. "The JFK Special Warfare School is there. That's really the birthplace of special operations as we know it today."

Hegseth changed the name back to Fort Bragg, but now inspired by and named for Pfc. Roland Bragg, who was honored with a Silver Star for his heroism during The Battle of the Bulge.

"That name, Fort Bragg, now being named after a World War II hero, I've always felt that that was the greatest generation. They literally saved planet Earth from tyranny and Nazis and to celebrate that name and have that associated now with Fort Bragg, I think is wonderful," McConkey said.

Moving forward, he hopes Fort Bragg will mean to future soldiers what it's meant to him for years.

"It's always symbolized, you know, patriotism," McConkey said. "The young airmen that are coming through there today are going to do what everyone else has done for decades, train hard, be ready at a moment's notice to be anywhere on planet Earth to answer the call and defend this nation, and they take a lot of pride in that. I know I did."