Retired Army Col. Reese Turner serves as a coach at physical fitness centers in the area of Louisville, Kentucky. A graduate of West Point, he earned masters’ degrees from the University of Phoenix in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In his more than 30 years in the Army, Col. Reese Turner served in numerous posts across the country.
Of the countless installations operated by the United States military, 10 are named for Confederate generals who led troops against the forces of the United States. In the summer of 2020, calls arose for the nation to rename the bases, pointing out the unseemliness of naming American military installations in honor of generals who fought against the US. These posts, all built in the former states of the Confederacy, where land was cheap and the climate permitted nearly year-round training, were established in the periods before World Wars I and II to train the large numbers of troops the wars would need. In the ongoing efforts of reconciliation with the southern states, the Army consulted with local authorities on naming the new posts after former Confederate generals.
They were presented with names such as Robert E. Lee, A.P. Hill, John Brown Gordon, and Braxton Bragg. Some of these men were noteworthy for their military prowess, many were slaveholders, and some were instrumental in the post-war establishment of the KKK and Jim Crow in the south. The 2020 renewal of calls to rename these bases came during a time of civil unrest marked by the removal or toppling of statues erected of Confederate generals. For several reasons, the focus of protests shifted without a resolution on the renaming of the Army posts, leaving it as an important issue that needs to be decided upon later.
