SC voters kept voting for Graham and now they'll have a base named after him.

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The Pentagon is taking steps to rename Joint Base Charleston after Air Force veteran and late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, according to an internal memo first shared with The Post and Courier.

In a letter dated July 27, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink ordered staff to begin work with Air Mobility Command and Joint Base Charleston leadership to take “all necessary and appropriate actions” to begin converting the name of the crucial East Coast air base to Joint Base Lindsey Graham.

The letter cited the late senator’s “decades of distinguished service to the United States Congress and the United States Air Force.”

“Senator Graham’s lifelong devotion to the military was shaped by his own military service and his public service in both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives,” Meink wrote. “His steadfast advocacy was instrumental in modernizing our military infrastructure and enhancing aviation security, ensuring that Joint Base Charleston remains as one of America’s premier military installations.”

Graham was a powerful advocate for the base, which was established from a number of adjoining North Charleston-based military installations as part of a larger reorganization of Defense Department facilities in 2010.

In the years since, Graham has helped direct hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help support the missions there, and was closely associated with a contentious effort to recruit Boeing to move to the area to construct its 787 Dreamliner over unionized Washington state, where the company was based.

In May, Graham helped secure an additional $212 million in funding to enhance Coast Guard readiness at JBC, with the money going to improve the installation’s pier infrastructure and construct new medical and dental facilities at the site.

“It is imperative this base has the necessary tools to protect South Carolina’s coastline and prevent deadly drugs, such as fentanyl, from reaching our shores,” Graham said at the time.

Graham served 33 years in the Air Force after law school, including six years of active duty in the 1980s that included a four-year stint as lead prosecutor for the Air Force’s felony case division out of Germany’s Rhein-Main Air Base.

In 1989, he transferred to the South Carolina Air National Guard, where he served a similar role at Columbia-based McEntire Air National Guard Base during the first Gulf War. While in office, he also served two separate deployments in the Middle East, earning commendations from retired Gen.l David Petraeus, who oversaw U.S. military operations in the region in the late 2000s.

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