Thursday, June 25, 2015

Now that the Confederate flag...

...issue is behind us (sort of), what about those ten U.S. military bases that are named after traitors?

From Time, "U.S. Flag Waves Over 10 Army Bases Proudly Named for Confederate Officers":

But the U.S. Army certainly can give Columbia’s banner a run for its money: it operates posts named for nine Confederate generals and a colonel, including the head of its army, the reputed Georgia chief of the Ku Klux Klan and the commander whose troops fired the first shots of the Civil War.

Let me see if I've got this straight: ten army bases are named after individuals who fought against the United States?

But don't worry, according to CNN, "Pentagon: Confederate base names won't be changed":

Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm B. Frost, chief of public affairs, said the naming of these bases "occurred in the spirit of reconciliation, not division."

He also said that "Every Army installation is named for a soldier who holds a place in our military history. Accordingly, these historic names represent individuals, not causes or ideologies."

Ah, gotcha. Then maybe "in the spirit of reconciliation" we could name one after German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, above. The Desert Fox, as he was affectionately known, was also responsible for the deaths of American soldiers in wartime.

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