General Braxton Bragg was born in 1817 in Warrenton, North Carolina. As a 20-year-old he graduated from West Point and served in the Seminole and Mexican wars. When he was kicking Mexico’s ass, his unit provided backup for the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis—who later made Bragg a Confederate general during the Civil War.
Bragg may have been a strategical genius, but everyone hated him. Several generals tried to get him relieved of his command, and one even challenged him to a duel. Nathan Bedford Forrest refused to serve under him, called him "a damned scoundrel,” and threatened to kill him.
Bragg was also crazier than a shaved rat in a coffee can. At one point he held two positions at one time: company commander and company quartermaster. As commander, he requested supplies from himself. As quartermaster, he refused his own requests. No kidding. Why did we name a fort after a deranged, hated lunatic? Because he died before we could make him president.
It’s the biggest, baddest Army base in the world. Here’s why we’re number one!
Cleland Sports Complex:
It’s got an ice skating rink that’s home to the soldiers’ hockey team, which beat the FDNY in two games this past February. Then New York’s bravest gave the victors a firefighter’s ax for their service in Afghanistan and Iraq.
JFK Chapel:
They hold funeral services for fallen Special Forces troops here. By tradition, behind a soldier’s casket stand his boots and his M-4 carbine on its muzzle, with his dog tags hanging from the trigger guard.
Building D2815:
Headquarters of the Security Assistance Training Management Organization, which sends teams to help developing countries build their own armies…so that we can later bomb them.
Sicily Drop Zone:
One of the main spots at Bragg for testing whether or not you’ve packed your chute properly. The ground is nice and sandy, so if your pack malfunctions, they can just cover you up like a cat turd.
Iron Mike:
Erected in 1961, this statue of an Airborne trooper weighs more than 3,000 pounds and is 16 feet tall. Why the nickname Iron Mike? No one knows. We figure it’s ’cause he comes alive at night and bites off people’s ears.
John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School:
Almost 2,000 volunteers try out to become the cream of the commando crop by earning their Green Berets. Only about 600 make it. Lard-asses need not apply.
Smoke Bomb Hill:
Back in olden tymes, artillery units used this hill as a firing range, marking their targets with smoke pots. Today it’s where soldiers go to pack a bowl and get high, man. Kidding! Don’t kill us.
Green Beret Club:
Despite the club’s name and the plaques on the wall honoring fallen Green Beret soldiers, this joint is open to all kinds. Go on in, order a drink, and pretend you’re a Navy guy. G’head! We’ll wait outside.
Delta Force Compound:
Although the Army won’t admit it, this famously secret Special Forces unit is based here. One of the buildings is home to the Hall of Heroes, dedicated to the men who made Delta great. Former instructor Walt Shumate’s mustache was enshrined in a glass case there after he died. Seriously.
Bragg's Story
1918 The Army spends $6 million to create Camp Bragg, a training camp to churn out troops for World War I. Bragg opens in September, and the war ends two months later.
1919 A landing field for planes and balloons is opened at Bragg. Pilots actually have to buzz the area first with a low pass to scare wild deer away before their planes can land.
1922 Hoping the French and Germans will fuck up the peace in Europe, the Army turns Camp Bragg into a permanent post and officially renames the place Fort Bragg.
1939 The Army’s wildest dreams come true, and the French and Germans fuck up the peace in Europe. GIs are disappointed to find that French women really don’t shower that often.
1940 The U.S. starts the first peacetime draft. Within a year Bragg takes on 60,000 extra soldiers. Buildings to house the new GIs pop up at a rate of one every 32 minutes.
1941 Not to be one-upped by war-torn Europe, the Japanese fuck up the peace at Pearl Harbor, and soldiers at Bragg start learning the Japanese words for beer and brothel.
1942 The 82nd Airborne is stationed at Bragg along with tank units, air corps, parachute infantry, and engineers. Wartime troop strength at Bragg is almost 160,000.
1961 The 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) is activated and given the mission of training counterinsurgency forces for deployment in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
1967 Troops from the 82nd Airborne at Bragg are sent to Detroit to suppress massive riots that will kill 43 people, injure over 1,000, and result in more than 7,000 arrests.
The Gulf War, Iraq, 1991
Eight British SAS (stands for Special Air Service and was formed during World War Two) commandos were inserted deep into Iraq in the early days of the Gulf War to search for mobile Scud missile launchers. Heavily armed with M-16s, grenade launchers, and antitank rockets, the members of team Bravo Two Zero were among the most fearsome and well-trained soldiers in the world.
But they weren’t prepared for what happened next. With the rattle of hooves on stone, a herd of goats appeared, followed by a young boy. He turned and looked directly at team leader Sergeant Andy McNab.* Should I shoot him? McNab thought. No—not a child. The boy dashed away.
There was no time to wait. The SAS team packed up and began double-timing it toward the Syrian border, 75 miles away. They had been hiking only a few minutes when they heard the sound of Iraqi armor coming up behind them.
The men formed up into a skirmish line and waited. Years of endless training couldn’t quell the fear and frustration. “Crap!” McNab shouted as he bobbed up and down trying to spot the enemy. From the other end of the line came the whoosh of antitank rockets his men directed at the first of two advancing armored personnel carriers. The fight was on.
Firing their rifles, leaping up, and running forward, then diving behind cover and firing again, the tiny band madly assaulted the dauntingly larger Iraqi force. Finally, the remaining APC bugged out as the Brits overran the Iraqi position. Dozens of enemy bodies were strewn around, severed limbs and intestines mingled in the blood-red sand.
“I felt enormous relief,” McNab later recounted, “but I was still scared. There would be more to come.” The commandos turned and headed west, keeping to natural cover as darkness fell. The temperature plummeted, and the men frequently came across Iraqi patrols.
Marching quickly at night, in a fog of exhaustion, the men accidentally became separated, with tragic results. Only one SAS member managed to sneak across the border into Syria. Two were killed in firefights, one died of hypothermia, and four were captured, savagely beaten, and tortured for weeks by the Iraqis. But in the course of their flight, the team had killed some 250 Iraqi soldiers.
After Saddam Hussein surrendered, he released the four broken men, explaining to his people that out of mercy he didn’t want to kill any more foreign troops.
1977 The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment: Delta, known to the world as Delta Force, is secretly created and supposedly stationed at a remote part of the complex.
1994 In March an F-16 fighter collides midair with a cargo plane, then crashes into another plane on the tarmac. Twenty-four soldiers die, and 100 are wounded.
1998 Ali Mo-hamed, a former sergeant who was stationed at Bragg, is arrested for working with al Qaeda. He is charged for his part in the attack on the U.S. embassy in Kenya.
2002 Four wives of soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg are killed, allegedly by their husbands. Three of the men, who’d returned from Afghanistan, subsequently commit suicide.
2005 More than 10,000 troops from Fort Bragg are serving overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan, dreaming about the day they get to return to the god-awful North Carolina heat.
Largest army installation and airborne facility in the world
Portion of U.S. Army at Fort Bragg:
10 percent
Office space:
20 million square feet (larger than five Pentagons!)
Restaurants:
28 (including a Hardee’s and a KFC, but no McDonald’s)
Operating budget:
$400 million per year
Cash pumped into local economy:
$4.1 billion (that’s more than the economies of Liechtenstein, Greenland, and Bermuda combined)
Plus:
A major medical center, eight schools, 11 churches, and even a wiccan coven, the Pope Open Circle
Special thanks to: James Dunnigan and Donna B. Tabor, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg historian, who had nothing to do with calling Braxton Bragg a "deranged, hated lunatic." Let's just make that clear.
