Recently we have seen the results of the Congressionally mandated Federal Naming Commission change the names of some of our most cherished military bases named that were named after Civil War “traitors” and “slave owners.” The commission’s mission was to provide removal and renaming recommendations for all DOD items “that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.”
Fort Lee originally named after the brilliant Robert E. Lee has now become Fort “Gregg-Adams” and Fort Bragg originally named after Braxton Bragg has now become Fort “Liberty.” These names are engrained in the DNA and psyche of the United States Army but by the stroke of a pen they are no longer. The list continues all in the name of the latest foolhardy and misguided attempt to repent for our sins of the past discounting the thousands of soldiers who died in combat including my great-great-grandfather who fell at the Battle of Cold Harbor in an effort to end slavery. But alas that does not count in today’s environment where those Democrats in power “are righting a long standing wrong.”
It is not a secret that freed Blacks owned slaves and other immigrant groups such as the Irish for forced into slavery in America – all very sad chapters in our history as a nation. But while we are righting the wrongs of the past what about those that were here first – the American Indian. Yes, I have Native American blood in my veins. Their lands were stolen, women raped, villages burned to the ground and the remaining population was systematically exterminated or confined to the squalor of reservations. Sort of reminds me of what we are now fighting against in Ukraine.
But unlike our Confederate “traitors” who Abraham Lincoln granted clemency in the spirit of reconciliation we can conveniently look the other way when it comes to the first Americans. Yes,
