USA TODAY International Edition
Rename military bases honoring Confederates
Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson once famously quipped, “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.”
An equally true principle might go something like this: “Change never happens, until it smacks you in the face.”
For decades, majorities of Americans have shrugged off the debate over the many Confederate symbols, ranging from flags to statues of generals, that dot the South. As if to underscore how rapidly things are changing, the Republican- controlled Senate is racing toward one important change: renaming the 10 U. S. military bases named after Confederate generals.
The plan to rename the bases, contained in a defense authorization bill, faces one major obstacle: President Donald Trump is vowing to veto it.
The move to change the names comes amid movement in public sentiment and after the secretaries of Defense and the Army said they are open to having a bipartisan dialogue on renaming the bases
It’s about time. States and localities will need to deal with their Confederate statues and place names. And Congress will likely take up separate legislation dealing with 11 Confederate statues in the Capitol. But getting rid of Confederate military base names is a good place to start.
After all, why should a nation honor generals who took up arms against it? The United States has no Army base named after Charles Cornwallis, the British general during the Revolutionary War, or famous turncoat Benedict Arnold. Why should there be bases named after people who fought on the wrong side at battles like Gettysburg and Antietam?
Some of these installations, including Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Hood in Texas, are among America’s biggest. About the only thing positive to say about Braxton Bragg and John Bell Hood is that neither was a particularly effective general.
Meanwhile, there are plenty more deserving candidates who could be honored. There is no fort named after Ulysses S. Grant, the Union general who won the Civil War and later became president. There used to be a small one in in Arizona, but it’s now a state prison.
Nor are there many forts named after great 20th century military leaders. Dwight D. Eisenhower, for instance, has only a hospital, which is on one of the bases named for a Confederate general, John Brown Gordon. And below these luminaries are numerous heroes of lesser rank — many of them from racial and ethnic minorities — who fought, and sometimes died, with great bravery and distinction.
Making the case against Confederate base names even stronger is the cause these generals were fighting for. Slavery is the worst stain on America’s history. It needs to be confronted, not rationalized or papered over. The Southern states seceded after the election of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, because they felt that he’d take the country in a direction that would eventually ban human bondage.
It is time to use military base names to honor people who fought for America, not those who sought to tear the United States apart.