Misplaced Honor

[struggle4progress]

By JAMIE MALANOWSKI
MAY 25, 2013

... Yes — the United States Army maintains bases named after generals who led soldiers who fought and killed United States Army soldiers; indeed, who may have killed such soldiers themselves ... Fort Lee, in Virginia, is of course named for Robert E. Lee .. responsible for the deaths of more Army soldiers than Hitler and Tojo ... Fort Benning in Georgia is named for Henry Benning .. who .. inflamed fears of abolition, which he predicted would inevitably lead to black governors, juries, legislatures and more. “Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that?” Benning wrote ... Another installation in Georgia, Fort Gordon, is named for John B. Gordon ... Before Fort Sumter, Gordon, a lawyer, defended slavery as “the hand-maid of civil liberty.” After the war, he became a United States senator, fought Reconstruction, and is generally thought to have headed the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia ... Fort Polk in Louisiana is named after Rev. Leonidas Polk, who abandoned his military career after West Point for the clergy. He became an Episcopal bishop, owned a large plantation and several hundred slaves, and joined the Confederate Army when the war began ... Surely we can find, in the 150 years since the Civil War, 10 soldiers whose exemplary service not only upheld our most important values, but was actually performed in the defense of the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opinion/sunday/misplaced-honor.html?_r=0

[tblue]

1. Geez. That's revolting.

No kidding. Rename all of them! Hardly anybody knows the origins of those names, so few people would put up a stink, especially now that that POS flag is coming down everywhere. Let's change those names and stop venerating oppression. Those men don't deserve to have anything named after them.

[malthaussen]

2. In fact, the U.S. government built fort A.P. Hill in part on my mother's family's farm.

Supposedly they were paid a reasonable amount for it.

-- Mal

[TheOther95Percent]

3. See My Post Here

I agree with you as many of these were named during the Jim Crow era. Still, ours is an unpopular opinion in some quarters.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026891604

[erpowers]

4. Fort Powell

I know some at DU will disagree with me, but the U.S. Army could name one of those bases after Colin Powell. Yes, there was the recent second Iraq War issue, but he may have been the first African Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If not after Colin Powell they could name one of those bases after the first African American U.S. Army General. The Army has many more than ten options for renaming those bases. There are many men and women who earned a Medal of Honor or some other service award.

On another note this should be taught in schools. How many kids join the military and spend time at these bases and never know who these men were and what they did? Though I never joined the military I have heard those names over and over again and never knew how many of those bases were named after Confederates and racists.