Winning history’s war

From Harry Truman’s 1948 desegregation of the military, the armed forces have represented every American man (women were barred from combat until 2013) and been open to advancement to all. Just this week, the Senate confirmed Charles Q. Brown as the new Air Force chief of staff, making him the first black officer to be a service commander.

In the same spirit, as American streets swell with protests over the killing of George Floyd, the Marine Corps and Navy have claimed the moral high ground and banned from their premises the traitorous, racist banner of secession and slavery, the Confederate battle flag. The Air Force and Army must follow.

Likewise, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy are rightly moving to rename 10 Army forts down South honoring Confederate generals.

Their commander in chief, ever the delirious divider, ever the historical ignoramus, insists he’ll block any name changing. To Donald Trump, Confederate heroes have earned a place in a proud American canon.

Virginia has three forts: Robert E. Lee, A.P. Hill and George Pickett. Louisiana has a pair: P. G. T. Beauregard and Leonidas Polk. Georgia has Henry Benning and John Brown Gordon. The others are Braxton Bragg (NC), John Bell Hood (Tex.) and Edmund Rucker (Ala.).

Some were bumblers like Hood and Bragg, whose incompetence helped the Union cause. Others were highly skilled warriors like Lee. All fought against the United States to maintain the evil of human bondage of black Americans. There is no Fort Rommel or Fort Giap. Change the names, and damn Trump.