Field Notes

While other bases are being renamed for Black soldiers, U.S. presidents and “Trailblazing Women”, Bragg is the only post not renamed after a person. The new name was chosen because “liberty remains the greatest American value,” according to one commission member. (Or could be the candidate pool? American combat deaths in World War II: 16 American Women, 708 African American Men, 406,576 White American Men.)

If we might waive the melanin and genitalia rule for the home of the “All American” 82d Airborne, I can suggest no better candidate than Lieutenant General James M. “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin. Hard to find any traces of White Privilege in his career. Born in a Brooklyn tenement and orphaned at age two, at 9 he was adopted by a coal miner and his wife. At 12 he quit school to work full time to support his foster family, but continued to read every book he could find in his spare time.

He joined the Army at 17, he studied nights and weekends to pass a competitive exam for admission to West Point. As a cadet he got up every morning before reveille to catch up on the required reading and graduated 185th out of a class of 299.

By 1939 he was back at the Point studying the new German Blitzkrieg tactics. Of these the most dramatic was the use of paratroopers. Several other nations were experimenting with the concept, but their focus was on small scale guerrilla raids and harassing tactics. Gavin’s vision was of airborne armies as a major component of a combined arms assault. His first task was writing FM 31-30: Tactics and Technique of Air-Borne Troops. Later, when asked what made his career take off so fast, he would answer, “I wrote the book,”

In 1942 he joined the 82d as commander of one of the division’s parachute regiments. He led his troops on long marches and realistic training sessions, creating the traini’ng missions himself and leading the marches personally. He also placed great value on having his officers “the first out of the airplane door and the last in the chow line.”

His first combat jump was into Sicily, True to his word, he was the first man out the door. He suffered a sprained ankle but pressed on with the fight. His second combat jump was Salerno; his third a night drop into Normandy on D-Day. As 82d commander he led his men into Montgomery’s Market Garden assault on the Bridge Too Far. He suffered two fractured discs on that landing but went on fighting.

The “All Americans” next big fight was in the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in World War II. On 21–22 December 1944, the 82nd Airborne faced counterattacks from two Waffen SS divisions which included the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen. The Waffen SS efforts to relieve Kampfgruppe Peiper failed due to the stubborn defense of the 82nd Airborne, the 30th ID, 2nd ID, and other units.

That spring he and his men drove toward the Rhine, collecting hundreds of thousands of prisoners along the way. He ended the war a 37-year old Lt. General.

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So long, it's been good to know ya
So long, it's been good to know ya
So long, it's been good to know ya
So long, it's been good to know ya
What a long time since I've been home
And I've gotta be driftin' along.

I have my own memories of Fort Bragg. Spent 8 of the toughest weeks of my life there in the winter of 1969. But I learned more about myself and the world around me in a semester at Bragg than I did in four years of college. My little band of brothers, shivering under thin blankets in World War II barracks, would have laughed at the name change to “Fort Liberty.” The company was probably 80 percent dispirited draftees.