Tag: Donald Smith
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Congress Values Names More Than Housing for Service Members
by Donald Smith “Removing the last vestiges of Confederate history from the U.S. military, including renaming nine Army posts, will cost more than $62 million, a congressional commission said Tuesday.” That quote is from Alex Horton’s Washington Post article on the recommendations of the Naming Commission, dated September 13th, 2022. “For the base names,” wrote Horton, “the changes will…
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Youngkin and Confederate Heritage
by Donald Smith Does the Virginia GOP want the help and support of the Confederate heritage community? We should get a pretty good indicator this week. Three bills just passed by the General Assembly will soon land on Governor Youngkin’s desk, if they haven’t already. They will remove the tax exemptions of the United Daughters…
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Rep. Bob Good Calls for Hearing on Naming Commission
by Donald Smith The Virginia congressman who represents Appomattox, where the Civil War started to end,* wants the House of Representatives to examine the impacts of Congress’ attempt to grapple with the legacy of that war — an attempt that could lay the groundwork for the legacies of Confederate generals and soldiers to be deemed…
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Congress, Commission Renounce Reconciliation
by Donald Smith ‘In passing the 2021 William M. “Mac” Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act, the United States Congress determined that Confederates and the Confederacy no longer warrant commemoration through Department of Defense assets.’ *** At such a time and under such conditions I thought it eminently fitting to show some token of our feeling,…
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The Enduring Value of Arlington’s Endangered Monument to Reconciliation
by Donald Smith Jim Webb, former U.S. Senator from Virginia, former Navy Secretary, and certified badass (Navy Cross, Silver Star and two Purple Hearts from his service as a Marine officer in Vietnam) grabbed quite a bit of attention last week. On August 18 he called for the Confederate Memorial at Arlington Cemetery to be…
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Too Fearful to Cross the Rubicon
by Donald Smith Maximus: Still no word? Quintus: Not a sign. Maximus: How long has he been gone? Quintus: Nearly two hours. “He” was a Roman liaison sent to see if the Germanic tribes lined up across the valley from Maximus’ (and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius’) legions wanted to avoid a fight. Shortly after Maximus’…
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The Pettiness of Canceling John S. Mosby
by Donald Smith In April, in Georgia, a correction morphed into an overreaction. As part of the ongoing process to change the names of military bases named for Confederate generals, Fort Benning became Fort Moore. Around the same time, the National Ranger Memorial Foundation (NRMF) responded to a directive from U.S. government officials. The NRMF sent workmen…
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The Naming Commission’s Declaration of Intent
by Donald Smith I’ve written a lot about the Congressional Naming Commission (CNC). In my opinion, the CNC has expressed contempt, and even disgust, for the legacy of people who served for the Confederacy. I base that assessment largely on the opinions and judgments the CNC declared in the Preamble to its Final Report. That Preamble is…
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Europe’s Complex Rebuttal to American Wokesters
by Donald Smith On the periphery of Rome, not far from the Vatican, stands a towering obelisk named for Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator and ally of Adolf Hitler. On a recent visit to the city, my taxi driver knew exactly where it was and found nothing remarkable about a request to go there. The…
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Why They Fought — and Deserve to be Remembered
by Donald Smith Soldiers go to war for many reasons — home, country, duty, glory, personal adventure. But, in the midst of battle, soldiers fight for their comrades — “the man to the left of me, the man to the right of me,” as the saying goes. Good soldiers are driven by an intense desire…
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It’s a Cemetery, for Crying Out Loud!
by Donald Smith Apparently, it is the will of the United States Congress that, in the interests of sensitivity and inclusiveness, we go into our cemeteries, and then search for and remove items that might offend someone who’s not related by blood or heritage to anyone buried there. The Congressional Naming Commission (CNC) has recommended…
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The Confederate Statue Compromise of Dalton, Ga.
by Donald Smith There are good ways and bad ways to handle controversial statues and memorials. These excerpts from a press release demonstrate one of the good ways. The press release describes how Dalton, Georgia, relocated a statue of a Confederate general, and did it in a way that fostered cooperation within the community. (All emphasis…
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Naming Commission is Stripping History
by Donald Smith The week of January 16, 2023, was a big one for Virginia heritage issues in the Richmond area. Connor Williams, the chief historian for the Congressional Naming Commission (CNC) came to the American Civil War Museum to explain and defend the commission’s sweeping recommendations toward, and its disparagement of, Confederate memories on…
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The Naming Commission’s Diktats
by Donald Smith The Congressional Naming Commission (CNC) was authorized as part of the FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act. Its eight commissioners included two retired Army generals, a retired Navy admiral and a retired Marine Corps general. It also had academics with imposing credentials. One commissioner is a professor emeritus at United States Military Academy…
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What Happened to All Those Promises to Defend Virginia’s Heritage?
by Donald Smith Many Bacon’s Rebellion readers — me included — worry that Virginia’s history is being erased and scourged and its heroes demeaned. The November 2021 state elections gave us cause for cheer. During his campaign, Glenn Youngkin indicated that he would stand up to the “Wokerati” working their way through the Old Dominion’s…