"Renaming Military Bases?" Topic

…A senior Army official told Fox News on Monday that McCarthy did not plan to change the names unilaterally, but instead will seek bipartisan support to do so. U.S. Army installations named after Confederate generals include Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Bragg in North Carolina…

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Political Correctness is absurd and kills.

I'm just waiting for protesters about racism to demand that statues of Napoleon in France be torn down because he reintroduced slavery on Haiti…

Long over due. We don't name other bases after other enemies of the United States and the Constitution.
It will be a bureaucratic nightmare and an administrative expense. But it is a long over due decision.

Yes, long overdue. Those names were insults to every American who fought to preserve the union.

following the logic to its end, most of the founding fathers were slave holders. Thomas Jefferson could be considered a rapist. Why should Blacks, or women, have to be offended by their statues. Lincoln,and the civil generals committed or condoned war crimes and crimes against humanity in the south. Why should the Sioux or the Cherokee have to look at monuments to Andrew Jackson or US Grant. It seems to me that this is a slippery slope: You knock down my statue I'll do my best to knock down yours.

Southerners were given the opportunity to vote to separate from the Union and took it because they felt that the Union didn't serve their interests anymore. All the same arguments that applied to the American Revolution, including slavery, apply to secession. Moreover I don't think most people at the time felt that the Union was not dis-solvable. If that had been made clear at the time it was formed I don't think there would have been a union. Virginia's articles joining the Union reserved the right to leave. Are Scots who voted for independence traitors?

following the logic to the actual end…we don't name military bases after military leaders of forces who fought us in a war.

Just say you are modernizing and looking to honor recent hero's to our country. These post's were named the way they were, at the time, to engage the support of the country/State. City names have changed over time, same thing with schools.

Might be a slippery slope but as someone whose great grandpa soldiered under Grant in the Army of the Tennessee I never was comfortable with the names of Fort Hood or Fort Bragg

Lets just take it a few steps further and be totally wonk and call them Base #1,base#2, etc.

Their isn't a single US Military Leader in the past that will pass the litiness test for a base to be named after him.

That's my point, who is "us"? It is constantly changing

Personally I disagree with changing them. To me FT Benning, where I went in as a young boy, and left a paratrooper, will always be Ft Benning, and the WW2 barracks I trained in at Harmony Church will always be there, even though they are now only a few museum pieces. Removing statues, changing names, it really does nothing in the long term. Yeah all the SJWs will feel really good about it at the time, but later down the road they will need something else to fill the void, then something else, then something else……

I'd leave Ft Bragg and Ft Hood considering what they did for Union. Maybe rename another Ft Pillow because of his contribution the Union cause.

Where will it end. Next any German or Italian named building? They where are enemies. Cities next becauce some slave trader found it? Maybe Minneapolis should use its original name Bdeóta Othúŋwe. Since it was taken from them by Anglo traders.

Few generals on either side did as much for the Union cause as Braxton Bragg, but I suppose that doesn't count.

Having seen the Obama-era ship-naming campaign, I am extremely uninterested in renaming bases until someone shows me a list of the proposed new names.

Oh. While we're at this. How long do the schools and cities which have renamed buildings and demolished statues because they no longer approve of their former benefactors have legally to return the donated money to the heirs?--adjusted for inflation and with interest, of course: fair is fair.

I have found that when it comes to issues of race, as I get older I defer to African Americans on the proper position to take.
I can only say that if your family had been owned as property, you would have a distinctly different view on this issue.

Pan Marek can you name any nationality or race that hasn't at one time or another been slaves to another.

Wack-

I'm not concerned with what happened 2,000 or 1,000 years ago.
Slavery existed here for 246 years. It was race based.
After its abolition, it was followed by about 89 years of Jim Crow. Such is within living memory.

Your ridiculous slippery slope argument is insulting to African Americans. And, you know it is.

I think we should let actual slaves get to rename the bases.
And we should probably start with Washington, D.C. He was a traitor to the crown, after all.

Yep, this is just a start, in order to try to tear down America and our Constitution, which many hate (e.g. both our country and the document and rights included within).

Overseas, someone defaced a Memorial to Lincoln.

George Washington and many, many other founding fathers are on their "hit-list" too.

The Second Civil War has begun.

On the right side, there are people trying to stand up for "the rule of law" and law-abiding police who protect them, and on the other are those attempting to tear down our laws, society, culture, and want to disband the police.

Long overdue

I'm not in favor if it, but I can understand the emotions that are driving it, and also understand that black Americans are offended. But where do we draw the line? As MG Stanley says, how far back do we go to excise the sin? Will it soon be time to take down Jefferson's Washington's statue and expunge them from public life?

Thresher01---I share your frustration. But there are Americans who want to improve things. To find ways that police interactions can be made less violent and deadly where possible. I don't think there is systemic racism in police forces and that's based on working in and around law enforcement agencies for decades. But we need to make sure the bad apples don't spoil the many fine officers who do their job in a dangerous profession.

@Pan Marek, I get where you are coming from. But, how many of the outrage mob knew who the bases were named for before they were told they should be outraged?

"If you know nothing about the Civil War, it was about slavery. If you know a little about the Civil War it was about states' rights. If you know a lot about the Civil War, it was about slavery". That being said, I don't think that it falls on us to excise every reminder of what was once a near universal institution from our society. It's built on the false assumptions that slavery and racism are uniquely American sins and that slavery and racism soil everything about American society. We need to learn to accept that we love in a nuanced world filled with flawed people and to not judge our past in a vacuum or without empathy. I think that renaming these posts represents giving in to the purest sort of vandals who wish to begin the world over again by wiping away everything that they find shameful and treating living, breathing people as mono-dimensional. Insist that the lowest common denominator elevate themselves to a degree of nuance; Being on the wrong side does not automatically strip someone of their humanity or admirable qualities barring truly satanic figures like Stalin and Hitler. I have never once heard a black servicemember complain about the names of these posts, if they knew who the posts were named after; Most of those who most care will never set foot on any military base. I have ancestors who died for the union and I'm not terribly bothered either.

These opinions are my own, and my own alone.

Why would renaming those forts bother anyone? If it makes someone happy, rename it.

What's in a name? I know one German family which renamed itself to to a more English sounding name to escape being considered traitors. It didnt hurt them and one of their orangey descendants has gone far.

Maybe the forts should be named after sponsors like Fort Dominoes?

@Thresher

Yep, this is just a start, in order to try to tear down America and our Constitution, which many hate (e.g. both our country and the document and rights included within).

How do we make this connection?

Given the limited number of opportunities to name bases after noted generals, how are we going to recognize the great generals of the modern period (e.g. WWI to present) if we don't regularly update names every 100 years or so? Then we could have a Fort Patton, MacArthur or Schwarzkopf.

I understand that both Patton and MacArthur were fairly dedicated racists.

What about some nonwhite generals? Fort Powell?

Well, if Fort Bragg needs a new name, my candidate
would be MG William Cary Lee.

Should the decision be made by whomever that Fort Bragg needs to be renamed,
the only candidate name which should be entertained is that of MajGen William Cary Lee.

MGen Lee is known as the 'Father of the Airborne'. He was born in Dunn NC, attended Wake
Forest College (as it was then, prior to WWI) and NC State College (as it was known before
WWI). He was a member of the ROTC while at State and upon graduation in 1917 was
commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant.

MGen Lee served as a platoon leader and as a company commander during WWI.
At the war's end, he elected to remain in the Army. Initially, he was assigned to the
fledgling tank force and studied at the tank school at Fort Meade, Maryland and also
at the French armor school at Versailles.

Lee became aware during his time in Europe of the Germans' development of parachute
troops and became a proponent of this branch. Upon his return to the United States, he
was ordered to Washington, to the office of the Chief of Infantry, the branch to which he
was originally assigned and in which he served during WWI.

In December, 1941,, the President sponsored the concept of airborne forces and Lee was
authorized to form the first parachute platoon. Too senior in rank to command it (he was a
major by then), Lee was involved subsequently with the Provisional Parachute Group and
then the US Army Airborne Command, in this latter assignment he was named commander
of the first jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia.

In August, 1942, Lee was promoted to Major General and was given command of the
101st Airborne Division at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. He remained in command, training
the Division and was in command when the Division was sent to the UK in September, 1943.

Lee participated in the planning for the Normandy invasion and continued training his men
for their role in the invasion. He trained as they did, meaning to jump with them in the
initial invasion.

Several months before the invasion, MG Lee suffered a heart attack and was sent back
to the United States for treatment. In late 1944, he was retired from the Army for reasons of
ill health and returned to his home in Dunn, NC. He passed away there in 1948.

Since MG Lee is a native North Carolinian, played a major role in getting Airborne
Forces established, commanded the first Jump School and commanded the first major
Airborne formation (101st Airborne), there can't be a better candidate after whom
to name Fort Bragg if that becomes necessary.

Thanks Bill.

What happened to Fort Arnold?
Even if you don't care about the current happenings, having federal bases named for traitors to the federal government seems strange indeed.
Even if Hood was really good at killing off his own soldiers and so made Sherman's job really easy. He was still a traitor.

having federal bases named for traitors to the federal government seems strange indeed.

Or dummies like Custer?

Wasnt there a Fort Pillow?

What about a Fort "My" Pillow?

We might as well wait on the fort issue. After the police are disbanded the military will be next so need for forts.

Robert E. Lee was a traitor to his country, but hero (once) to his state. He did more to smooth out the end of the Civil War than anyone. If he had given the ok, there would have been extended guerrilla war.

His statue is coming down, so who next -- Washington Monument or Jefferson Memorial. They were both slave holders so why honor them. And shut down Washington and Lee University, what a terrible combination.

So much history to rewrite, Winston Smith would have a field day.

An alternative: "One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present."
― Golda Meir, My Life

I note your comments about the Royal Family, MiniPigs, so I'll just point out that in Whitehall there is a statue of Charles I, but outside Parliament there is a statue of Oliver Cromwell, who fought against him in our civil war, signed the king's death warrant, and was himself declared a traitor, dug up (he had already died) and ritually 'executed' for treason upon the Restoration of Charles II.

Neither statue seems to cause any offence to anyone today, and in WWII there was a 'Cromwell' tank.

I fail to see how renaming military bases in the USA, or removing statues of long dead, largely forgotten people who had some connection with the slave trade in the 18th century in London (announced by Mayor Sadiq Khan today) will ensure that black people in the USA or UK can be confident they will be treated fairly by the police – THAT is the issue that should concern everyone today.

Stoss-

Your assumption that African Americans don't know is pretty arrogant. As I said in my comments, start listening to them. You might learn something.

Thresh-
How does renaming military bases "tear down the Constitution"?

3Acres-

1- Slavery based on race is a uniquely American phenomenon.
2- African Americans are interested in redressing the wrongs of American slavery. That's all that counts.
3- How is renaming the bases "vandalism"?

Again, it would useful if you looked at this from an African American's perspective.

Arthur-
You fail to see because there are none so blind who will not see. Ask a black person.

Where does this sort of behavior stop? Already, college students are wanting to tear down/remove statues of Thomas Jefferson, because "he was a racist."

Um.. pretty much anyone from any period of history can be faulted for some social crime, even many of our modern-day social justice warriors.

This is, I believe, a part of an orchestrated program of separating ourselves from our history and culture, which does happen to lay within the playbook of a certain political ideology.

Proponents of this strategy pick on what they perceive to be the weakest links to a received culture in society and they then await the outrage mob to join the bandwagon, many simply out of a misguided sense of being a good member of modern society.

We certainly have named military equipment for past enemies, anyone ever hear of that gadget we call the AH-64 Apache or the H-13 Sioux? Isn't that cultural appropriation to the new guardians of the social order?

Instead of tearing down the past, we should just accept it for what it truly is, a reminder of past faults and failings, and then a visible admonition to do better as a people?

For some reason, I have not come across much in the way of recent demands for statues of Woodrow Wilson, arguably the most racist of any U.S. President, to be torn down, buildings, schools, or highways named after him to be renamed or demolished. How about Lyndon Johnson? He is known to be an absolute racist, using the "n-word" in the oval office, and caught on tape? Why isn't his memory being trashed, tarnished, and utterly rejected by the outrage mob?

As much as I dislike both of the two individuals I just named, I really do not believe that we, as a society, should be writing them out of our history by removing those reminders from society. Ancient Egypt did this and as a historian, I am flabbergasted that we essentially want to do the same thing.

Instead, we should agree that perhaps in naming new buildings and erecting new statues should take these faults into consideration. Heck, even MLK, one of my childhood heroes, was a man with many faults, but do we bring that up every time his named is mentioned or do we celebrate the good things he stood for?

And truly, I do not need to go talk to an African American about how bad slavery was. Not a single former slave is alive, and I daresay that the immediate offspring of any former slaves has also passed. Does that mean we should ignore the effects of slavery on the African American community? I say no. On the other hand, the tendency of anger towards violence in the name of past slavery is merely a political tool, both cynical and evil at its heart.

Does racism exist? Yes, but sorry, racism is something that exists across the planet, not just in the USA, Europe, or Australia, it is quite evident in China and Japan, and parts of Africa, too. I think we can all agree that racism, as we understand it, is inherently wrong and that society needs to continually address it, but to blame everything that is wrong within an ethnic group to current or past racism is equally wrong.

You cannot lay the blame of slavery to any living person. And yet, it appears that a number of people want to do so. I have ancestors who were slaves, but does that fact hold me down and keep me from being successful? Not a darn bit.

I have been in places where my ethnic differences from those around me was readily apparent and I was met with hostility, some veiled and some not so veiled. My car windows were smashed with bricks and I was told I "shouldn't be in this neighborhood." Did such experiences traumatize me forever…or even for a moment? Nope. I just chalked it up to people being ignorant and not living up to the memory of the many they claim to idolize and who eloquently stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial when he gave his most influential public speech.

I very rarely post here or even visit, anymore, because people are all too ready to single out those they disagree with over political and social issues and condemn them, tell them they "need to educate" themselves, and so on and so forth.

How about you do you and let me do me? Live and let live? I'll treat you in the manner I wish to be treated, with fairness and equality. Where individuals commit crimes because of racism, let them be charged and let justice takes its course, but going around and blaming everything on racism is ludicrous and at its heart, unjust.

I've had enough had to have my say, which I have done. Otherwise, I am done with this. I will not be replying further and I am far more likely to get my news elsewhere… thanks a lot, Bill. I love you man, I really do, but opening this can of worms here, was in my humble view, a mistake.

Pan Marek, that's just an easy put down that doesn't address the point I made in my last paragraph.

I'm not necessarily saying that bases shouldn't be renamed or statues removed (but not by violence/vandalism), but that it shouldn't be given the priority it seems to be given at the moment over a much more important issue – police treatment of racial minorities.

I'm reminded of a radio interview I heard many years ago when some politically correct lobbyists were wanting to stop Robertson's Jam from using a gollywog as its trademark on the grounds it was 'racist'. A black gentleman was asked his opinion and replied, "If that was the most important thing I had to worry about, I'd be a very happy man."

My ancestors were Confederates. I was never comfortable being born in Grant County, Washington. My family have made amends and in the last 50 years have given a total of 100 years plus of military service to the USA.

TMP!

Too small to be a republic, too big to be an insane asylum

Too infantile for anything else.

Eric

Slavery based on race is a uniquely American phenomenon

Boy, do you need to read some history !!!

I know, let's vote on it. But the only people allowed to vote are holders of the CMH or DSC.

Pan Marek: "African Americans are interested in redressing the wrongs of American slavery. That's all that counts."

From the free dictionary: Redress: 1. To set right (an undesirable situation, for example); remedy or rectify. See Synonyms at correct.
2. To make amends to: felt he should be redressed for the loss.
also,
1. Satisfaction for wrong or injury; reparation.
2. The act of redressing; rectification or reformation.

So what does that entail in the here and now? Must I bow and profess my collective guilt for a sin that occurred over 150 years ago? Write a check to someone?

No one alive today has ever suffered from slavery here in the US. Wrongful discrimination, yes. And we should strive to do better always. But the madness of the crowds and mobs is not the way.

@arthur1815

I note your comments about the Royal Family, MiniPigs,

I see where you might get that but I wasnt speaking of the royal family.

I would rename them, not because of any connection to slavery (which was legal at the time), but because of a connection to treason/rebellion (which was not).

epturner….you nailed it.

@pan marek I should have figured you would read it that way. That's not what I said. But, you knew that already….

"Slavery based on race is a uniquely American phenomenon."

I have to ask why you believe this when it's not true on any level. There were Black slaves in many European countries, and the time frame for abolishment of slavery between many (but not all) European countries and the US is only about half a century. The practice of what you call racial slavery in Europe until the 19th century has been largely forgotten (or simply not talked about).

Even if you meant all of the Americas (not just the US), the Spaniards enslaved native Americans largely based on race. You might also want to look up the history of a certain Belgian king and how an entire African nation was enslaved and owned by him personally, ending only in 1908. That was definitely racially based.

There is race based slavery right now in countries like Libya (which restored slavery after Kaddafi died). There is very little discussion of this unpleasant fact. This doesn't even begin to address human trafficking, which is a modern way to say slavery- often which is racially based.

So many people are ignorant of the history of slavery but completely ready to pontificate on it. Slavery is a horrid practice that goes back for a very long time with few pauses. It wasn't something that existed 2,000 or 1,000 years ago and suddenly just disappeared until 'Racial Slavery' emerged. A lot of slavery was based on races throughout that history.

In the entirety of human history, we have not really escaped slavery, which is why we should all be against it and do our best to ensure that it's practice is done and gone once and for all.

I ask the basis of where you came to make a statement like that because whoever taught that to you isn't doing anyone any favors by spreading a falsehood that does more harm than good.