WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is anticipated to signal an government order on Friday that can change the identify of the Protection Division to the Division of Battle, a White Home official informed CNN.
It’s a transfer that the president and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth have previewed in latest days, together with Trump within the Oval Workplace final week when he informed reporters his administration was going to “change the identify.”
“We name it the Division of Protection, however between us, I believe we’re gonna change the identify,” the president informed reporters on August 25.
“We received the World Battle 1, World Battle 2 — it was known as the Division of Battle, and to me, that’s actually what it’s. Protection is part of that, however I’ve a sense we’re gonna be altering.”
The information about Friday’s order was first reported by Fox Information.
Whereas at Fort Benning on Thursday, Hegseth indicated the identify change could be approaching Friday.
“I’d say standby tomorrow,” Hegseth stated when requested a couple of potential change. “It’s one thing that — phrases matter. Titles matter. Cultures matter. And George Washington based the Battle Division. We’ll see.”
The final time the division’s identify was modified took an act of Congress. CNN has reached out to the White Home about how it could change the identify this time.
The Division of Battle, because it as as soon as known as, was first established by President George Washington when he based the nation’s Military. However the identify was later modified in 1949 as a part of a broader reorganization of the navy underneath President Harry Truman.
Truman signed the Nationwide Safety Act in 1947, which merged the Division of the Navy, the newly created Division of the Air Drive, and the Division of the Military — beforehand the Division of Battle, in line with the Military — into one group known as the Nationwide Navy Institution, underneath the civilian secretary of protection. The Nationwide Navy Institution was renamed the Division of Protection in August 1949.
The Nationwide Safety Act additionally established the Joint Chiefs of Workers as a corporation to advise the president on navy planning and technique.
The hassle to rename the Pentagon follows quite a lot of comparable steps by Hegseth to vary the names of bases and ships. He reversed a Biden-era determination that had eliminated Accomplice-era names of bases like Fort Bragg and Fort Hood, reverting to these titles however formally naming them after completely different people with the identical names.
In June, Hegseth additionally ordered the renaming of an oiler ship named after homosexual rights activist and Navy veteran Harvey Milk. — CNN
