Friday, September 9, 2022

Prattville Dragoons SCV Camp 1524 Commander's Column for September 2022 - Lee’s Honorable Legacy Worthy of Preserving

Apparently, committing multiple robberies and assaults and being a drug addict are cause célèbre to dishonor and diminish the life and legacy of one of America’s greatest men in history, Robert E. Lee.  The federal Naming Commission established in the wake of the George Floyd death and which was funded by your tax dollars to investigate the naming of military installations after Confederate Generals turned their collective PC historical revisionism to the portraits of Robert E. Lee at West Point. https://www.newsmax.com/us/confederate-statues-west-point-george-floyd-robert-e-lee/2022/06/03/id/1072904/.  Many Confederates also served the United States with distinction including President Jefferson Davis, General Fitzhugh Lee, General Joseph Wheeler, General P.G.T. Beauregard and “151 (others) West Point produced (who) fought for the Confederacy.  In 2015 Time Magazine quoted a Defense Department spokesperson that “these historic names represent individuals, not causes or ideologies. It should be noted that the naming occurred in the spirit of reconciliation, not division.”  (But today division is espoused by the POTUS and racism is institutionalized in affirmative action initiatives so) this raises the question whether anything named after Robert E. Lee is automatically and exclusively considered a Confederate or racist symbol? If so, removal or renaming seems appropriate. But if the answer is that objects may be appropriately named after Confederate leaders in some circumstances, then removal or renaming, seems both reactionary and empowering to hate groups.” https://www.justsecurity.org/44479/tangled-history-confederate-generals-west-point-army-robert-e-lee/   The spirit of reconciliation and honoring the sacrifices, bravery, genius, and leadership of the Confederate soldiers has been replaced by a collective PC historical revisionism to wash America’s history and replace it with comparatively insignificant irrelevant substitutions to represent America’s fighting forces such as mail person Charity Adams and stay-at-home-mom Julia Moore.

Fort Gordon is proposed to be renamed after General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander during World War II and 34th President of the United States.   This seems untenable as he has espoused Lee, in defense of hanging a portrait of him in the Oval Office saying, “General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation…. he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.  From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.”   Eisenhower was not alone in his astute perceptions of Lee.  French General Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Allied Commander WWI, stated, "If Gen. Robert E. Lee was a traitor, Napoleon Bonaparte was a coward. If General Lee was a traitor, I wish France had more of them. he was one of the greatest military leaders the world has ever known."  Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States and Colonel in the US Army of Rough Riders fame, said, “General Lee has left us the memory, not merely of his extraordinary skill as a general, his dauntless courage and high leadership in campaign and battle, but also of that serene greatness of soul.”  https://the-american-catholic.com/2017/08/23/theodore-roosevelt-on-robert-e-lee/

To ignore the universal praise over the past century and a half of one of America’s greatest leaders in a blind effort to diminish Lee’s legacy and the Cause for which he fought and led his men to battle should enrage all Southern compatriots and veterans who have served in our Armed Forces.  The SCV Charge employs us, “To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish.” Nothing truer than to reflect on Lee as the personification of these attributes but as the SCV National website reminds us too, “The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built.”  Our nation is quickly losing sight of these honorable attributes and our nation will be the lesser for it. 


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