Meet Fort Cavazos. As of Tuesday, the installation formerly known as Fort Hood, Texas, that has been at the center of several national controversies will no longer be named after a Confederate general.
The new name honors Gen. Richard Cavazos, a Texas-born Mexican American who twice earned America's second-highest military honor during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Both instances of Cavazos' heroism involved rallying his soldiers against an entrenched or ambushing enemy, often exposing himself to fire and at least once refusing an order to leave his soldiers behind.
This latest designation is part of the Defense Department's push to rename installations honoring the Confederacy; Fort Cavazos is one of nine Army installations being renamed after the Pentagon's Naming Commission delivered recommendations to the secretary of defense.
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Fort Hood — which has gained national media attention for strings of soldier suicides and murders — is home to the Army's III Armored Corps, an organization that makes up the lion's share of the service's heavy armored units.
“We are proud to be renaming Fort Hood as Fort Cavazos in recognition of an outstanding American hero, a veteran of the Korea and Vietnam wars and the first Hispanic to reach the rank of four-star general in our Army,” Lt. Gen. Sean Bernabe, III Armored Corps commanding general, said in a press release….
