Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue leads the first-ever Sunset Liberty March, Thursday, June 1, 2023, alongside Gold Star Mothers Patti Elliott, left, and Maureen Miller, right, at what was then Fort Bragg, N.C. The Fort Bragg was renamed Fort Liberty on Friday, June 2, 2023. Elliot’s son, Army Spc. Daniel Lucas Elliott was killed in Iraq in 2011. Miller’s son, Green Beret Staff Sgt. Robert Miller, was killed in Afghanistan in 2008 and posthumously received the Medal of Honor. (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)
FORT LIBERTY, N.C. — As the sun set for the final time over what was known as Fort Bragg on Thursday, Army Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue led dozens in an evening march on the North Carolina post — a new nightly tradition known as the Sunset Liberty March.
Under a purple-streaked sky and a nearly full moon, Donahue and local veterans, family members of fallen soldiers and active-duty service members marched a new six-tenths of a mile course through the center of what is now Fort Liberty. The marchers were flanked on their right with markers denoting the long history of the installation, from its designation in 1918 as Camp Bragg to the 2022 order to rename the post Fort Liberty.
"This walkway tells the story of, ultimately, Fort Liberty,” said Donahue, the commander of the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps and the installation. “It ties everything together — what this culture and what everyone does on this base. That's what this is about.”
The march is modeled after a similar one held nightly in Nijmegen, Holland, which honors the 48 World War II paratroopers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division who were killed in action liberating the town from Nazi occupation.
Donahue said the march was meant to preserve the long-held history that the installation built under the name Fort Bragg, while also embracing its new name for one of the most important values of the United States. The former Fort Bragg officially became Fort Liberty in a ceremony Friday morning.
The name change is the latest step in a three-year process kickstarted by Congress in 2020 to strip Confederate linked names and items from military bases, including renaming nine southern Army bases that honor Confederate generals.
The march will continue every night, 365 days per year, Donahue said. Each night a “veteran of the day” will lead the march in honor of someone who has died in service. Donahue said he signed up to lead the Dec. 24 march this year and hopes to march in the snow, which would be a rare event in the region.
Marchers participate Thursday, June 1, 2023, in the inaugural Sunset Liberty March during the last sunset over Fort Bragg, N.C., which was renamed Fort Liberty on Friday, June 2, 2023. The march will be held every night at Fort Liberty to honor fallen service members. (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)
Fort Liberty officials said Thursday that veterans had signed up through August to lead the marchers. Those interested can sign up at www.sunsetlibertymarch.com.
Donahue said the march path and its 39 historical markers were built in the last three weeks, and they will be improved in the coming months. Among the forthcoming features will be a memorial to all the Fort Bragg associated troops killed in action.
“This is about our ability to remember every day,” Donahue said. “This is a very, very simple process that we will do … every day.”
Among the Thursday evening marchers was Geniece Baer, the widow of a longtime Fort Bragg soldier. Her husband, Sgt. 1st Class William Grant DePew died in Colorado in 2020 while serving as an intelligence sergeant for Fort Bragg’s 3rd Special Forces Group.
Baer said when she first learned of Fort Bragg’s name change, she had mixed feelings, especially given her late husband’s more than a decade of service on the post, where she now works.
But when she learned a Gold Star mother had nominated the name Fort Liberty because she said her son had “died for liberty,” she was moved to support the decision.
“Our loved ones gave their lives for liberty,” Baer said after the march. “It’s a gift — it’s a heartbreaking gift, but it's a gift that all of our men and women give to our country, and so it's beautiful to be able to name our base in that big idea of liberty and what they all … do here and what we stand for.”
Baer said she would complete the walk in the future on significant dates in her and her husband’s lives such as their anniversary and his birthday. Other times, she said, she would probably visit the march site on post just to think about him.
“It’s such a wonderful thing to have here,” Baer said. “A place where we can just come to not forget the past but also to move forward.”
