Donald Trump has said that he refuses to allow the renaming of military bases named after Confederate generals, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley does not share Trump’s clear affinity for racist traitors.
Last month, Democrats and Republicans alike called for renaming military bases like Fort Hood, Fort Bragg, and Fort Benning as a show of solidarity behind the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis.
Millions of Americans across the country have been protesting against police brutality and racial injustice ever since, while demanding the removal of Confederate statues that help racists prop up oppression.
Generals Bragg, Benning, and Hood were all Confederate generals who turned their backs on this country, ordered the killing of American soldiers, and were seriously racist.
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But Trump announced on Twitter that he opposes the effort to rename the bases.
It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020
…Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020
The names of these bases should be changed, and even Trump’s top general agrees.
During a congressional hearing, Milley expressed his disgust over Floyd’s death and warned that racism creates division that weakens us.
“I have many policemen in my family. And I am personally outraged by George Floyd’s brutal and senseless killing,” Milley said according to CNN. “We as a nation and as a military are still struggling with racism, and we have much work to do. We who wear the cloth of our nation understand that cohesion is a force multiplier; divisiveness leads to defeat.”
Milley then strongly rebuked the Confederate generals these bases are named for.
“[T]hose officers turned their back on their oath,” he said. “It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the US Constitution.”
Indeed, why would any American want our military bases to be named after traitors who killed Americans all so they could keep enslaving other human beings? It makes zero sense, especially since the United States military won the Civil War by utterly defeating the Confederacy.
Milley went on to suggest a way forward to rename the bases.
“[T]he way we should do it matters as much as that we should do it,” he said, recommending “a commission of folks to take a hard look at the bases, the statues, the names and all of this stuff, to see if we can have a rational, mature discussion.”
“I personally think that the original decisions to name those bases after Confederate generals were political decisions,” Milley concluded. “And they’re going to be political decisions today.”
But renaming them, more importantly, is the right decision. And, unlike Trump, Milley intends to be on the right side of history.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Master Sgt. Michel Sauret
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