Army leaders hold off on banning Confederate symbols, renaming installations

Since this is an election year and this issue has been bandied about for decades, IMHO, it makes great sense to wait and evaluate. The cost of renaming posts in terms of dollars, resentment by those who served and have no issues with post names, and evaluating the rationale should require due diligence. The individual state governments need to be in agreement since it impacts them.

I realize this is a personal issue for you, my friend COL Charles Williams.
For those aiming to eliminate CSA flags, I added images of many of the CSA battle flags and the state flags.

1. I spent a far amount of time on the ARSTAFF and learned one of the benefits of our system is that it takes significant effort to make lasting changes. I have spent years getting changes through Army leadership and OSD for that matter.
a. On the other hand I saw top-down changes implemented by CSA such as the Black Beret and after 9-11-2001 requiring all soldiers in the Pentagon and associated buildings to wear BDUs instead of Class B uniforms. Nobody bothered to check availability of the current authorized BDUS woodland pattern. I had to wear older BDUs until availability improved. [WE looked at traveling to Bragg for instance to get BDUs since Belvoir, Myer, etc were cleaned out. :-)
2. Wise leaders seek to understand second and third order effects of decisions and when possible unintended consequences. Most understand that banning anything tends to increase interest in the activity - displaying CSA flags, tee shirts, license plates in states with only rear license plate and going to bars, etc were a CSA flag is displayed.

3. There have been efforts to cleanse history of references, statues, memorials, etc. to the confederacy, colonization, etc. since the 1960's especially.
4. Protests over postage stamp design have been a lesser publicized issue. This has been applicable to stamps not yet issued. The stamps depicting confederate leaders and scenes are part of the historical record.
5. Those dealing in confederate artifacts such as uniform items [the uniforms themselves were nonstandard and both Federal and Confederate units had Zouave uniforms], confederate currency and CSA postage stamps may actually see an increase in sales and prices because of the attention. An unintended consequence. :-)
6. I have some of the confederate states of America postage stamps [less expensive ones]. I also have some of the Nazi German issued stamps - focused on the military themed issues.
7. The current situation initiated by Marxist BLM and anarchist ATIFA to tear down the culture has little to do with achieving equality as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated. I was somewhat surprised that the leaders of BLM were Marxist and even posed for pictures with Venezuelan dictator Maduro.

Image:
1. Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi (R) poses for a photo with Venezuelan socialist dictator and alleged narco-terrorist Nicolas Maduro on September 28, 2015, at the National Black Theater in Harlem, New York City.
2. Confederate Battle Flags 1861-1865
3. Confederate State Flags

What do you think? COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC John Shaw LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Maj Marty Hogan SP5 Mark Kuzinski SSG William Jones SGT Steve McFarland SPC Nancy Greene SPC Woody Bullard Alan K. SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT Philip Roncari SGT (Join to see) CPT Paul Whitmer SMSgt Lawrence McCarter PO3 (Join to see) PO2 (Join to see)

I like your answer. Any decision is better than none, but yours is spot on.

Thank you for the share from Army Times sir.