Fort Benning
Fort Benning is a major United States Army installation situated in Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties, Georgia, adjacent to Columbus and along the border with Alabama, serving as the primary training hub for infantry and armored forces.[1] Established as Camp Benning on October 7, 1918, to rapidly expand infantry training amid World War I demands, it was elevated to permanent fort status in 1922 and has since evolved into the Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE), encompassing the U.S. Army Infantry School—long dubbed the "Home of the Infantry"—and the U.S. Army Armor School, which relocated from Fort Knox in 2010 under Base Realignment and Closure directives.[2][2] Originally named for Henry L. Benning, a Confederate general and advocate of slavery during the Civil War, the post underwent a contentious redesignation to Fort Moore in May 2023 as part of a Department of Defense commission's effort to excise Confederate-associated names from installations, honoring Lieutenant General Hal Moore and his wife Julia Compton Moore for their leadership and family support roles.[3][4] This change sparked debate over historical preservation versus reevaluation of post-Civil War commemorations, with critics arguing it overlooked the installation's operational legacy in favor of symbolic shifts driven by contemporary politics.[5] In April 2025, following a directive from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the name reverted to Fort Benning to instead commemorate Sergeant Fred G. Benning, an 18-year-old World War I corporal from the 16th Infantry Regiment who earned the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in machine-gun defense against German assaults.[6][7] The fort's defining contributions include pioneering modern infantry tactics, such as the development of the Ranger School in 1950 and airborne operations during World War II, where it trained over 100,000 paratroopers, and its role in shaping U.S. Army doctrine through rigorous basic combat training, advanced individual training, and combined arms maneuvers that have prepared generations of soldiers for conflicts from Normandy to Iraq.[8] Spanning over 182,000 acres, Fort Benning supports not only military education but also significant economic impact on the region, employing thousands and fostering innovations in soldier lethality and maneuver warfare.[1]