Milley urges ‘hard look’ at renaming numerous bases
The top military official in the United States called Thursday for “taking a hard look” at changing the names of Army bases honoring Confederate officers who had fought against the Union during the Civil War, disagreeing with President Donald Trump and further exposing a divide between the military and the president.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Trump’s senior military adviser, told a House hearing that the base names had become an issue of “divisiveness.”
Ten Army bases that honor Confederate generals who fought to defend the slaveholding South have been the focus of a growing movement for change.
“There is no place in our armed forces for manifestations or symbols of racism, bias or discrimination,” Milley said.
“The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion,” he said. “It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union. Those officers turned their back on their oath.”
Milley had warned White House officials this month that he planned to give his unvarnished opinion to Congress if the base issue came up, an administration official said. But his assessment was nonetheless likely to anger the president, who has made clear his disdain for both the waves of demonstrations for racial justice that swept the country last month and the calls to rename the Confederate bases.
But just as Trump has shown an increasing willingness to air divisive and even racist viewpoints, military leaders have also shown more willingness to publicly express views at odds with their commander in chief ’s.
Milley infuriated the president last month when he issued a public apology for taking part in Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square for a photo op after authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the area of peaceful protesters. “I should not have been there,” Milley said later.
The 10 bases named after Confederate generals are all in the South: Fort Bragg in North Carolina; Fort Hood in Texas; Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia; Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Pickett and Fort Lee in Virginia; Camp Beauregard and Fort Polk in Louisiana; and Fort Rucker in Alabama. Critics argue that the men lionized by these base names were traitors who fought the very military that now honors them, and that glorifying them is a boon to racist groups.
Trump grew upset when he saw articles about the possibility of renaming bases, according to administration officials. He threatened to veto the military spending bill passed by Congress if it contained a requirement to rename the bases.