Joint Base Charleston renamed to honor late Sen. Lindsey Graham
August 12, 2026
Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, became Joint Base Lindsey Graham during a ceremony today to rename the installation after the late senator, Air Force veteran and South Carolina native son.
Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, is now Joint Base Lindsey Graham following a renaming ceremony Monday, Aug. 10, dedicating the installation to the late U.S. senator, Air Force veteran and South Carolina native.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth led the dedication of the 32-square-mile installation, joined by Gov. Henry McMaster, Sen. Darline Graham and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The base is home to the 437th Airlift Wing, which flies the C-17A Globemaster III and provides global airlift capability for the joint force.
Graham represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate from January 2003 until his death July 11. He began his political career in the South Carolina House of Representatives and served in the U.S. House from 1995 to 2003, representing the state’s 2nd District.
His military service spanned 33 years. Graham served as a lawyer and commissioned officer in the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps, on active duty from 1982 to 1988, then with the South Carolina Air National Guard until 1995 and with the Air Force Reserve until 2015.
Hegseth said Graham devoted his life to serving the state and the armed forces, in uniform and in both chambers of Congress, and that the mission never changed between those roles. He said Graham understood that peace depends on being prepared for war and on a nation’s willingness to defend its own people and sovereignty.
The secretary recalled first meeting Graham as a young Army first lieutenant, newly returned from Iraq and working with a small veterans advocacy group that had little money and few connections. Graham, he said, was the only senator willing to sit down with the group, welcoming a room of lieutenants and noncommissioned officers who wanted a winning strategy on the ground.
Hegseth said he crossed paths with Graham again years later while serving as an instructor at a counterinsurgency school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Graham, then on reserve duty and visibly jet-lagged, made time to hear directly from troops about conditions in the war, he said.
Weeks before Graham’s death, Hegseth said, the senator asked what the War Department needed in reconciliation funding to reach its $1.5 trillion request, the largest in U.S. history. When Hegseth named a figure of $350 billion on top of a $1.15 trillion base budget, he said Graham countered by offering $355 billion.
Darline Graham, who succeeded her brother in the Senate, called the renaming a tribute to his 33 years of service and said his interest in foreign affairs and national security grew out of his time in the Air Force. She said it was often difficult to tell whether her brother was a senator who happened to serve in the Air Force or an Air Force lawyer who happened to serve in the Senate, and that the base now carries the name of a man who loved his country, his state and the Air Force.
Following the ceremony, Hegseth met with airmen of the 437th Airlift Wing and with troops who supported Operation Epic Fury, the mission targeting Iranian missiles and missile production, the Iranian navy and related security infrastructure. He praised the wing’s role in C-17A modernization and its operational testing of palletized munitions, and said logistics remain the foundation behind every successful mission.
The ceremony took place one day before the Aug. 11 statewide special Republican primary for the Senate seat Graham held, a race in which Darline Graham is among the candidates.
In photo: Left to right: Scott Bessent, treasury secretary; Secretary of War Pete Hegseth; Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina; and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster pose for a photo following a ceremony to rename Joint Base Charleston, S.C., as Joint Base Lindsey Graham, Aug. 10, 2026.
Photo Credit: Army Sgt. 1st Class Curt Loter
