Posted on Jun 22, 2015
SGM Matthew Quick
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What do these US military bases have in common?

Fort Bragg
Fort Rucker
Fort Hood
Fort Lee
Fort Benning
Fort Gordon
Fort A.P. Hill
Fort Polk
Fort Pickett
Camp Beauregard (Operated by the Louisiana National Guard)

They are all named for Confederate generals. There’s been talk for years about whether this is appropriate, and now in wake of Charleston and the South Carolina Confederate flag, it’s coming up again.

Do you think these posts should be renamed to honor people who fought in the U.S. Army exclusively? Vote, and share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Take the Poll:
http://www.stripes.com/military-life/military-history/poll-should-us-military-bases-named-after-confederates-be-renamed-1.353890#
Posted in these groups: E83e9618 Confederate Flag
Edited 9 y ago
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Responses: 282
WO1 Intelligence Officer (S2)
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No, after the Civil War, Service Members on both sides were recognized as US Veteran's.
So there is no problem with the names of bases.
Though neither the Confederate Flag, or the Confederate Battle Flag should be flown in any official capacity.
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LTC Bink Romanick
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I never could figure out how we named them after confederate generals in the first place. Why would we change them now?
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LTC Bink Romanick
LTC Bink Romanick
9 y
Personally I'd like to see a Fort Eisenhower, a Fort Bradley , a Fort Patton but that's just my opinion .
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SSgt Thomas A Tullis Jr
SSgt Thomas A Tullis Jr
9 y
No, the bases were named before current events. Another question asked about CMOH awarded to soldiers at Wounded Knee, again I answered NO. One can't apply current events or requirements to HISTORY WITHOUT rewriting HISTORY.
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SGM Senior Adviser, National Communications
SGM (Join to see)
9 y
LTC Romanick, I wrote an article in the Fort McClellan News long ago on this subject--beginning with why McClellan was the only southern base named for a union general. The gist of the article: During WWI mobilization, southern states had powerful southern senators who wanted to revive their state economies. They offered land for the types of training bases (infantry, artillery) northern states did not want due to the "unwanted" side effects of thousands of young men on military posts, even to the extent of moving entire small towns. So the states proposed the names of mainly West Pointers and no one questioned it. McClellan was the exception due to local politics. The trend continued in WWII, when southern senators encouraged building of POW camps at or near the southern bases after the invasion of North Africa when we inherited 50,000+ German POWs on a single day, arriving in what were to be empty transport ships returning from deployment. Other camps were later built in various locations to house senior officials, intelligence prizes, Japanese POWs, hard core Nazis.
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LTC Stephen C.
LTC Stephen C.
9 y
Ironically, SGM (Join to see), the adjacent Pelham Range (across Highway 21 from old Fort McClellan) is named for Lieutenant Colonel (posthumously promoted) "Gallant" John Pelham, CSA! It's maintained by the Alabama Army National Guard, and is still used extensively.
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LCDR Vice President
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Funny story when we were doing Operation Earnest Will in 1987 we had to come up with 7 daily changing call signs for the players. We would get the message out early in the morning, as an E-5 it was my job to finish the tape and send the message out. The ops and intel (two O-5s) guy roomed together and I would stop by around 2am and pick the hard copy off a desk in their state room. I get there one morning to find them arguing about Civil War general's names the theme of that days call signs. One of the guys was a VMI grad and was animate about the names you mention above but the other guy, a ring knocker, wanted four Union generals on the list. Problem was he could only come up with five. By 0400 the message went out with 4 Confederate and 3 Union Generals names.
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LTC Paul Labrador
LTC Paul Labrador
9 y
Well that's kind of better than MSRs in OIF1 being named after strip clubs.... ;o)
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LCDR Vice President
LCDR (Join to see)
9 y
So we did daily operations for 4 months and each day we needed seven code words that followed a theme. Once the alphabet, numbers, states, south american countries, country music stars, ect... were exhausted, yes we had to get original like bars in Bahrain. I am sure you can imagine.
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1SG Michael Blount
1SG Michael Blount
9 y
LCDR (Join to see) LTC Paul Labrador - we had some of the most stupid MSRs in our AO. "Fran" "Henry"...c'mon man. This was Fallujah, for cryin' out loud
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SGT Unit Supply Specialist
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Yes. Who else names places of honor after defeated military enemies?
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PO1 Richard Mecom
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No leave alone......move forward
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SFC James Cameron
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The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia seems to be the only fragment that draws attention and I get it, but it’s wasn’t the standard of the Confederacy. It’s just the most easily recognizable.

A vast majority of the Generals mentioned had long and successful careers in the Army before secession. Lee was instrumental to the victory at the Battle of Chapultepec which is still part of the heraldry of the Marine Corps. His reputation was so great that he was asked by Lincoln to command the Federal Army. Those aren’t small achievements.
Another astonishing thing is that the same people piping and squawking about installation names couldn’t tell you anything about the War Between the States beyond Lee, slavery, Lincoln, Gettysburg and maybe Appomattox. So words like Shiloh, Chickamaugua, and Chancellorsville mean nothing to them but have significance to Unit Heraldry today. They also won’t acknowledge that Lincoln was very explicit concerning the difference between actions to preserve the Union versus the abolition of the institution of slavery. The war up until 1863 was about the preservation of the Union.
If we continue to deny history, we can look forward to having those that deny it happened. It only took some Germans a generation to begin to claim their atrocities never happened.
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PO1 Richard Mecom
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No...but I would consider Fort Cupcake....and they can get on base with their TIME OUT CARD
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Sgt Print Journalist
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Edited 4 y ago
2-2020 Updates: Good for the Army. Why should any Americans sacrifice any of our history for the flaming virtue-signaling hypocritic Left? >:{
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/28/army-doesnt-plan-renaming-10-installations-named-confederate-leaders.html
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SP5 Peter Keane
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Reading through 2years worth, I believe RP should have started with a trigger warning for this one.
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SN Earl Robinson
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Edited >1 y ago
It is really amazing what some on this site will throw against the wall to see if it sticks as a justification for racism. I see all these different people trying to say these Confederate Officers were of Americans that honored our constitution. But not matter how much lipstick you put on it you're still kissing a pig. This is not about the liberal media or some far fetched leftist conspiracy. This is about racism plain and simple. There should only be one place for monuments to these men. It isn't military base names, or federal/municipal buildings. The only place any monuments to these men should be is in confederate cemeteries where they can stand over the graves of the men they led to their deaths.

Think about it for a minute. The only these fitting monuments to these men should be to the men they murdered. Anything short of that is a bad joke. Personally I think every last one of the monuments should be melted down and taken to the Laurentian Abyssal and dropped to the deepest place on earth so even them metal they were made from is never seen again by man. BUT, we are in America where we can say what we want without reprisal.

But back to the original question.......F#^K NO! rename all the bases for Union Generals that defended our Union not traitors who would tear it asunder.

Also I would do not want to erase southern history but I don't think treason by some should be glorified or held as a badge of honor anymore than we should honor Julian Assange or Vladimir Putin. The funny thing is the confederacy lost the majority of the battles and almost always had more casualties in the battles so tell me again what was so great about them?????? Thats like me telling someone "hey those guys are shooting at me go get them" when I started the fight! And then my distant cousin in 2056 decides to put a statue of me up to show the world how stupid the guy who went and got shot for me starting a fight was. I'm just saying.

Its not heritage, it just hate. So own it!
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