Know the name behind your duty station - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

Know the name behind your duty station

At some point in every military career, service members pause to look around their installation and ponder the immortal question:

“I wonder who this dump is named for?”

Wonder no more. Marine Corps brat, Air Force veteran and Army spouse Linda D. Swink spent four years researching and compiling “In Their Honor: The Men Behind the Names of Our Military Installations” to provide answers.

The book is a unique reference source for biographical data on the people — some famous, many obscure — who did something notable enough to have a military facility named after them.

But the book also serves a higher purpose: It’s crammed with military trivia that is sure to come in handy for winning bar bets:

• Beale Air Force Base, Calif., is named for Gen. Edward “Ned” Beale, 19th-century pioneer, friend to famous scout “Kit” Carson (as in Fort Carson, Colo.) … and founder of the U.S. Army Camel Corps.

Yes, there was such a thing — briefly. Beale tried using the beasts for transportation and moving heavy gear while surveying a wagon road in the Arizona Territory. “Because of the stubborn nature of the animals, the experiment failed,” Swink notes.

• Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va., is named after Col. Archibald Henderson, the “grand old man of the Marine Corps” who became commandant in 1820 and didn’t step down until 39 years later.

His trivia trump card: He is credited as the driving force behind legislation enacted in 1834 that ensured the Corps would remain under the Navy rather than becoming — hold onto your chew, Marines — part of the Army.

• Fort Gordon, Ga., is named for Lt. Gen. John Brown Gordon, a Confederate officer during the Civil War and later governor of, and a U.S. senator from, Georgia.

His claim to trivia fame: He was commander of the Confederate II Corps when that unit made the final charge of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox before Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered.

• Naval Weapons Station Earle, N.J., is named for Rear Adm. Ralph Earle, a weapons expert who ran the Bureau of Ordnance during World War I.

Earle was a key designer of the long-range, 14-inch artillery guns that were mounted on railway cars to wreak devastation on the Western Front in the Great War.

Swink doesn’t merely skim the obvious; along with major chapters for each active-duty service, others cover National Guard facilities, airfields and overseas bases.

“In Their Honor” is more suited to browsing than reading. But for military trivia buffs, it’s a slam-dunk conversation starter.