Fort Rucker is making its name change official Thursday - its second in two years’ time.
An installation redesignation ceremony is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at the newly-renamed Fort Rucker in Dale County.
Only this time, the installation takes its name not from a Confederate figure but a World War I aviator.
Fort Rucker was originally named for Confederate Col. Edmund W. Rucker, a brigade commander during the Civil War who fought at Chickamauga, Franklin and Nashville. After the war, he was an industrial figure in Birmingham who made his home in Five Points. He died in 1924
Then in 2023, the name was changed to Fort Novosel after Enterprise resident Michael Novosel Sr.[1] Under then-President Joe Biden, the Defense Department changed the names of several military bases that honored Confederate figures in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests.
Novosel was a military aviator for more than 40 years and received the highest military honor for his service in Vietnam. He died in 2006.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum reversing the naming of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg.[2]
The base’s new namesake is Capt. Edward W. Rucker, a Missouri native who was called into service in 1916 and saw action in France during World War I.
He was credited with helping to down several German planes near Luneville, France on June 13, 1918, according to the Masonic Great War Project.[3]
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross along with 21 other officers and enlisted men, as well as the Croix de Guerre with palm.
“Flying deep behind enemy lines, then-1st Lt. Rucker and his fellow aviators engaged a numerically superior enemy force in a daring aerial battle over France, disrupting enemy movements and completing their mission against overwhelming odds,” the Army said in a statement last month.
After World War I, he relocated to New York before moving to St. Louis. He died in 1945.
A descendant of Edmund Rucker[4] has spoken out against the renaming.
“Rucker family members support naming Army bases for individuals who fought for the United States….we don’t want our name back on an Alabama base,” K. Denise Rucker Krepp, a former House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee senior counsel, posted to X on Tuesday.
“Novosel is a Medal of Honor recipient,” Rucker Krepp said in another post to X.[5]
“His name should remain on an Alabama base.”
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