FORT CAVAZOS, Texas — Fort Hood changing to Fort Cavazos is a historic moment that not everyone in the community agrees with.
Fort Cavazos had carried the name Fort Hood for generations, until now.
This was a name that has lived in the memories of many service members still living in Bell County — and some are not happy with the name change.
”Every veteran is entitled to their own opinion because everyone’s service is different,” said Willie Keller, Veteran and Commander of VFW Post 12209.
“Everyone's opinion of their service is different.”
Keeping an open mind, Keller is okay with the name change.
”Change is always going to hurt but, that’s the life of evolution,” Keller said.
“The military is going to evolve. We're not serving in the same military that we had in the 70’s. It’s a more modern day military and a different military than we had then.”
The Under Secretary of the Army, Gabe Camarillo says changing the name needed to happen.
”The effort to rename and redesignate Fort Hood into Fort Cavazos was, first of all, driven by Congress,” said Hon. Gabe Camarillo, Under Secretary of the Army.
“It was legislation that recognized that all of these installations have to reflect the values the we have as a country and that of the Army.”
Camarillo said the name change is also about honoring our nation’s heroes.
”That goes beyond the name of any one installation,” Camarillo said.
“It is something we do across entire Army, across the entire department of defense.”
For Keller, he couldn’t be happier with choosing General Cavazos and the post’s new namesake.
”There are a lot of things that are implemented in today’s training,” Keller said.
“He was the one that implemented that. He's the one that wrote the doctrine that we use today for a lot of training.”
Though some are okay with, or even happy with the change, for some veterans, the post will always be Fort Hood to them.
