RICHMOND, Va. -- Fort AP Hill was renamed Fort Walker in a Friday ceremony as part of an ongoing effort to remove names associated with the Confederacy from U.S. military installations.
Dr. Mary Walker served during the Civil War as a volunteer nurse tending to the wounded because while she was a doctor, her gender made her ineligible to serve as one.
"What a fitting tribute that today we designate this installation Fort Walker, the only installation in the Army named solely for a woman," Major General Trevor Bredenkamp said.
"Your gender does not limit the dreams you can have and the contributions you can make," Brig. Gen. Mary Krueger added. "And really this taps into the fact that we can benefit from the talent of our entire population, our entire, diverse population in the US."
Retired Lieutenant General Arthur Gregg, the namesake of Fort Gregg-Adams, another renamed Virginia army post, said the late doctor's family deserved to see Walker recognized with such a tribute.
"Some of her distant relatives are here and you can see the pride in their faces," Gregg said. "And they brought a great deal of meaning and dignity to this ceremony."
Retired Lieutenant General Nadja West, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army said it was important for Americans to know Walker's role in history.
"I would tell my kids, as I mentioned in my speech, there would be no Dr. West, or Gen. West, without Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, who paved the way over a century ago," West said. "Not able to join as a doctor, she said well, I'll join as a nurse, and a nurse is a phenomenal profession, I'm not saying anything else but she was a doctor, she decided well I'm not going to be full of myself and say, I'm a doctor, and serve as a doctor. She served any way she could."
At the conclusion of Friday's ceremony, all three of Virginia's military installations named for Confederate figures have undergone a formal name change.
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