"... during the Civil War, four slave states remained in the Union—Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky—and none of them were required to give up slavery during the entire war. And that in every major battle of the Civil War, slave owners in the Union Army fought against non-slave-owners in the Confederate Army. . . . in the eyes of a Confederate soldier, if Lincoln had not freed slaves in the Union, why should the soldier be vilified for supposedly fighting on behalf of slavery?" - Jim Webb, Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2023
Former U.S. senator from Virginia and Navy secretary, writes an excellent piece that appeared August 19, 2023 entitled "Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington" (scroll down for a PDF)
We will save or lose the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in the next few weeks
Note by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Before Elizabeth Warren and her Woke naming commission can desecrate Arlington National Cemetery by demolishing the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial, they must follow the Section 106 process required by the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The public is encouraged to get involved.
This is your chance if you have been outraged at the politicization and falsification of American history in recent years by leftist academia and an ignorant news media that fewer than 20% of the public trusts.
Individuals can sign up to be apprised of everything going on, and they will be given opportunities to speak at Zoom meetings and/or post comments to NHPA and NEPA websites.
Click HERE for a PDF of the "Consulting Party Response Form for Section 106 Review Process" that will allow you to be kept informed and to be given opportunities to input your thoughts.
You can email the PDF (email address to send it to is included in the PDF) or print it and mail it.
Taking advantage of these opportunities is extremely important. The more speakers and writers we have the better. Every SCV camp and UDC chapter should have at least one person sign up and hopefully several. Newsletter editors especially should know what is going on so they can keep their members and allies informed.
We are fighting not only for the truth of American history but for the honor of Arlington National Cemetery itself.
There is no way that the Confederate Memorial, which is surrounded by 518 Southern graves in concentric circles emanating out from the magnificent monument, can be demolished without desecrating those graves forever and making them the target of hate and derision in what is supposed to be our nation's most sacred burial ground.
They would be 518 graves in concentric circles around a mangled shaft in Arlington National Cemetery.
That would dishonor each of the fifteen states represented by those graves and stain Arlington National Cemetery for all time. How can ANC be a sacred place if it dishonors and humiliates 518 soldier graves?
William McKinley, Union soldier and later president, said this about those 518 Confederate graves:
. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.
Below, is part of Jim Webb's op/ed, "Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington," published in the Wall Street Journal August 19, 2023. Click HERE for a PDF of the complete article. Following Webb's excerpt is my testimony August 11, 2023 by Zoom video before the Advisory Committee for Arlington National Cemetery.
Here is Webb's short bio from the article:
Mr. Webb was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, Navy secretary (1987-88) and a U.S. senator from Virginia (2007-13). He is the distinguished fellow at Notre Dame’s International Security Center.
Webb first notes enthusiastic Southern support for the Spanish-American War then talks about President William McKinley, who originated the idea for a Confederate reconciliation memorial in Arlington National Cemetery:
Four days after the Spanish-American war ended, McKinley proclaimed in Atlanta: “In the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers.” In that call for national unity the Confederate Memorial was born. It was designed by internationally respected sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, who asked to be buried at the memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. On one face of the memorial is the finest explanation of wartime service perhaps ever written, by a Confederate veteran who later became a Christian minister: “Not for fame or reward, not for place or for rank; not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity; but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it; these men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all, and died.”
But now in this new world of woke, unless measures are taken very soon, by the end of this year the Confederate Memorial will be gone.
With surprising overbroadness, the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, passed in the midst of national racial and political upheaval, empowered a Naming Commission to “remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America . . . or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America from all assets of the Department of Defense.” As part of that provision, Arlington National Cemetery has been ordered by Defense Department officials to remove the memorial by the end of this year, though the order is reportedly under review.
Having spent four years as a full committee counsel in the House and six years as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I cannot imagine that the removal of this memorial, conceived and built with the sole purpose of healing the wounds of the Civil War and restoring national harmony, could be within the intent of a sweeping sentence placed inside a nearly trillion-dollar piece of legislation.
The larger and ultimate question reaches further into America’s atrophied understanding of the Civil War itself. What was it that Union Army veteran McKinley understood about the Confederate soldiers who opposed his infantry units on the battlefield that eludes today’s monument smashers and ad hominem destroyers of historical reputations?
McKinley’s fellow soldiers understood that during the Civil War, four slave states remained in the Union—Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky—and none of them were required to give up slavery during the entire war. And that in every major battle of the Civil War, slave owners in the Union Army fought against non-slave-owners in the Confederate Army. They understood that President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in those states or in the areas of the South that had already been conquered. The proclamation freed only slaves in the areas taken after it was issued. And in the eyes of a Confederate soldier, if Lincoln had not freed slaves in the union, why should the soldier be vilified for supposedly fighting on behalf of slavery?
Many soldiers in the North, and many more in the South, would have understood what John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), America’s most esteemed black historian, pointed out: In 1860 only 5% of whites in the South owned slaves, and less than 25% of whites benefited economically from slavery. An estimated 258,000 Confederate soldiers died in the war, about a third of all those who fought for the South. Few owned slaves. So why did they fight?
The soldier who wrote the inscription on the Confederate Memorial knew. And so did President McKinley and most veterans who have fought in America’s wars.
Video Testimony of Gene Kizer, Jr. to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, August 11, 2023 (emphasis was for my own use)
Good afternoon, and thank you for your service. I'm Gene Kizer, Jr. of Charleston Athenaeum Press.
When the Ranger Memorial in former Fort Benning was DESECRATED by the same legislation that threatens the 109 year old Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, Brigadier General Joseph S. Stringham (ret), chairman of the National Ranger Memorial Foundation, wrote to his Rangers and said:
The naming commission's recommendations are "WITHOUT VERIFICATION."
Implementation of dramatic / radical edicts and shifts in policy at issue here are frequently accompanied by inaccuracies, (stupid) interpretations, injustices to survivors and a strong political slant offensive to substantial sectors of society.
That is also the case with the Confederate Memorial.
The naming commission submitted a false report on the Confederate Memorial. The Confederate Memorial should not be in its remit.
The Confederate Memorial does not commemorate the Confederacy unless you think that is why Barack Obama sent his ANNUAL MEMORIAL WREATH to the Confederate Memorial.
Obama and all presidents since Teddy Roosevent were celebrating the reconciliation and reunification of the United States of America after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed.
The reconciliation theme is irrefutable and in ANC's own documents repeatedly.
Demolishing the world class Confederate Monument surrounded by 518 graves will desecrate those graves forever and DISHONOR every Southerner who has ever bled and died for our great nation. It will stain Arlington National Cemetery for all time.
The Army can't even recruit today and this will sure not help it since 44% of our military has traditionally been recruited in the South.
We are Americans. We should act like it and stop acting like the Taliban.
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Click HERE for orginal source.
