Confederate names removed from the Ranger Memorial

Fort Benning’s Col. Colin Mahle proceeded with recommendations from the Congressionally-mandated Naming Commission to cover or remove certain names on the Ranger Memorial associated with the Confederacy, even though they served the United States honorably, retired Brig. Gen. Joseph Stringham, Chairman of the National Ranger Memorial Foundation, wrote in a letter on April 28. Not only did the [naming] commission dishonor the Rangers commemorated, but hiding the names denies free expression of those who contributed to the memorial . . .

Confederate names removed from the Ranger Memorial

Elizabeth Warren’s renaming legislation has shredded the fabric of our country

Destroying the 109 year old Confederate Memorial in Arlington is next

Over 44% of our military has traditionally been recruited in the South

But to serve today, Southerners have to accept Warren’s LIE that they have traitor blood flowing through their veins

The full color tab is 2⅜ inches (6.03 cm) long, 11/16 inch (1.75 cm) wide, with a ⅛ inch (0.32 cm) yellow border and the word “RANGER” inscribed in yellow letters 5/16 inch (0.79 cm) high. Ranger Creed, courtesy Jay France. CPT Adam Snyder was a member of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s 2004 graduating class. CPT Snyder died Dec. 5, 2007, in Balad, Iraq. Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said “every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor.” The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that “no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art.” In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.

[Publisher’s Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. – In ‘Covers Up History’: Retired Army Rangers Hammer The Pentagon For Purging Confederates From The Ranger Memorial,ⁱ Micaela Burrow of the Daily Caller News Foundation writes:

    The U.S. Army’s order to scrub names on the Ranger Memorial thought to be associated with the Confederacy is an affront to the legacy of the Rangers and free speech, retired U.S. Rangers told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

    Fort Benning’s commander proceeded with recommendations from a Pentagon commission to cover or remove certain names, even though they were wrongly identified as offensive, according to National Ranger Memorial Foundation chairman Brig. Gen. Joseph Stringham.

    “I’ve paid for my right to free speech in blood and agony. Others paid a lot more,” retired Ranger 1st Lt. Richard Fincher told the DCNF.

Free speech does not matter to Elizabeth Warren and her Woke naming commission with its erasure of history and false report to Congress.

The dishonoring of the Ranger Memorial is the most recent outrage but the coveted goal of naming commission vice chair Ty Seidule is the demolition of the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

It is hard to imagine what’s in the heart of a person that could demolish a magnificent 109 year old monument surrounded by 500 graves in concentric circles symbolizing the reunification of our country after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed, but here is what Seidule wrote on page 162 of his hate screed Robert E. Lee and Me:

Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That’s why it riles me so much. . . .

Seidule then admits that the Confederate Memorial stands for reconciliation but he leaves that critical fact out of the naming commission’s report to Congress, thus he made the report false by the omission of critical facts he knew well. He continues on page 162 of Robert E. Lee and Me:

I know both political parties and white citizens in the North and South brought the country back together after the tremendous bloodletting and destruction of the Civil War. The posts named for Confederate officers during World War I also served to knit white America back together as it fought a common foe. And it worked, but we must recognize that reconciliation came at a steep and horrifying cost. African Americans paid the price with lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the loss of the franchise. The price for white reconciliation remains far too high. (Bold emphasis added.)

In the past, military service was revered in the South where 44.1% of the U.S. Military was recruited but Seidule’s clear message is: Southerners you are not welcome in the military today unless you agree to a LIE, that your blood is the blood of traitors.

Warren’s legislation, which could have been stopped by then Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jim Inhofe, is the epitome of what Orwell warned about in 1984 when he wrote:

Who controls the past controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past.

But Inhofe lied to President Trump when he promised to stop Warren. I am a Republican but the national Republican Party, except for President Trump and a few others, is the most worthless cowardly stupid party in American history that NEVER stands up for its voters.

Where is Tom Cotton? Josh Hawley? Nancy Mace? Joe Wilson? Do they agree with Elizabeth Warren that their voters have traitor blood in them?

The Southern states with their Confederate history are mostly Red States, and the Northern (Union) states of Elizabeth Warren and naming commission historian, Connor Williams, are mostly Blue States.

This is 100% politics and not history.

Warren, Williams and Seidule don’t want you to know, or they don’t know themselves, that the Blue States brought all the slaves here shackled on their backs in vomit and feces for months through the Middle Passage for Yankee money.

Do you think virtue signaling Elizabeth Warren cares that New York and her Boston were the largest slave trading ports on the planet during the War Between the States, some 54 years after the slave trade was outlawed by the U.S. Constitution?

Elizabeth Warren’s New Englanders brought ALL the slaves here. They built their economies on the slave trade before the Revolution then continued selling black people illegally for Yankee profit the entire antebellum period, until well after the War Between the States, because slavery was still legal in Brazil and Cuba.

The founder of Brown University, John Brown, not the infamous John Brown of Harpers Ferry but John Brown, American patriot, of Providence, Rhode Island, famously said:

[T]here was no more crime in bringing off a cargo of slaves than in bringing off a cargo of jackasses.ⁱⁱ

W. E. B. Du Bois in his famous book, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870, writes that Boston, New York and Portland, Maine were the largest slave trading ports on earth in 1862, a year into the War Between the States:

The number of persons engaged in the slave-trade, and the amount of capital embarked in it, exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late [1862] the principal port of the world for this infamous commerce; although the cities of Portland and Boston are only second to her in that distinction. Slave dealers added largely to the wealth of our commercial metropolis; they contributed liberally to the treasuries of political organizations, and their bank accounts were largely depleted to carry elections in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.

Those places were not fighting to end slavery. They were fighting for political power, money and control, just like Elizabeth Warren is today. Power, money and control are why all wars are fought.

Do you think that Elizabeth Warren even knows that there were more slave states in the Union when the war started than in the Confederacy, and that six slave states fought for the Union the entire war? West Virginia came into the Union as a slave state warmly welcomed by Abraham Lincoln just weeks after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Do you think the political propagandists Warren, Williams, and Seidule know that New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia all reserved the right of secession before ratifying the United States Constitution? All the other states accepted the reserved right of secession of New York, Rhode Island and Virginia thus they had it too because all states are equal and entered the Union as equals with the exact same rights.

Our country was born from the secession of 13 colonies from the British empire. Secession was in the DNA of everybody, North and South.

You can’t have freedom if there is no way you can divorce yourself from a government that becomes tyrannical.

The evidence is overwhelming of the right of secession, which is why New England threatened to do it so many times.

That Warren, Williams and Seidule do not know this, or reject it, proves they do not understand or care about American history.

They are pushing leftist political hate to the Blue States’ base. Tearing down the monuments and dishonoring the patriotic history of the Red States gives them power, which is exactly why rioters in the streets destroyed monuments after George Floyd’s death. They want the power that comes with being able to destroy.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower explained our history well when he defended Robert E. Lee to a dentist who had excoriated him for having a picture of Lee on his wall in the White House. Gen. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, towers over Ty Seidule in understanding American history but then Eisenhower’s history is based on truth, and Seidule’s is based on Woke leftist politics.

Eisenhower wrote the dentist, Dr. Leon W. Scott, August 9, 1960:

Dear Dr. Scott:

Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War between the States the issue of secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.

General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; 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 caliber 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, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.

Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.

Sincerely,

Dwight D. Eisenhowerⁱⁱⁱ

After the Southern names were erased from the Ranger Memorial, “retired Rangers told the Daily Caller News Foundation the move undermines the memorial’s intent to honor the contributions of Rangers throughout U.S. history.”

Burrow goes on:

“It’s disgraceful. I think it’s foolish because it covers up history,” Retired Ranger 1st Lt. Richard Fincher, who served in the 101st Airborne Division and has a target stone in the memorial, told the DCNF. “Recognizing the valor and leadership of a foe does not constitute the endorsement of their cause.”

What kind of country would we be if we allow names to be taken off sacred war memorials; and we allow monuments in cemeteries to be destroyed so the Elizabeth Warrens of the world can feel virtuous?

One of the inscriptions on the Confederate Monument comes from the Bible, Isaiah 2:4: “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

The bigger question is, can our country survive the lies of omission of Ty Seidule and Connor Willams, and the deliberate shredding of the very fabric of our nation by Elizabeth Warren and the Republican cowards like Jim Inhofe who went along with her in the 2021 NDAA against President Trump’s wishes?

If you think antebellum Americans did not believe in the right of secession then you CAN NOT KNOW American history yet Seidule and Connor Williams both state frequently that Confederates are traitors.

Apparently, neither of them know that there were no trials for treason after the war because the U.S. Government knew it would lose.

Around one-third of our country are descended from Confederate soldiers whose bravery and valor when they were invaded by the North (think about THAT!) are the very definition of those words.

Union veterans knew this and warmly welcomed Southerners back into our country. They knew our late war was over legitimate differences such as the North’s desire for a powerful central government they could control with their larger population. They could then tax the rest of the country for their own benefit as Alexis de Tocqueville said would happen if one region got control of the government, and that is exactly what did happened.

One region with its larger population controlling the central government is exactly the “tyranny of the majority” the Founding Fathers warned about.

Jeffersonian Southerners were the opposite. They believe in the sovereignty of their states and they put that in the Confederate Constitution.

Southerners accepted the outcome of the war and rejoined our nation with enthusiasm, encouraged by real heroes of American history like Robert E. Lee. They had stood up and fought well for their God-given right to self-government and they were deservedly proud of it.

No people in the history of the world ever displayed more valor than Southerners despite being outnumbered four to one and outgunned 200 to one.

Yankees were well fed, well clothed, and well armed while the Confederates that Warren, Williams and Seidule all hate, were often barefoot, hungry and carrying muskets.

Southerners sacrificed everything for independence. Historian James McPherson writes:

[T]he overall mortality rate for the South exceeded that of any country in World War I and that of all but the region between the Rhine and the Volga in World War II.¹

Compare the 750,000 dead of the War Between the States out of a national population of 31.4 million, with the 419,400 dead of World War II out of a national population of 132,164,569.

Basil Gildersleeve, still known today as the greatest American classical scholar of all time, was a Confederate soldier from Charleston, South Carolina. He sums it up nicely in The Creed of the Old South, published 27 years after the war:

All that I vouch for is the feeling;  . . . there was no lurking suspicion of any moral weakness in our cause. Nothing could be holier than the cause, nothing more imperative that the duty of upholding it. There were those in the South who, when they saw the issue of the war, gave up their faith in God, but not their faith in the cause.^iv

The reconciliation theme of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington is irrefutable and established by Arlington National Cemetery itself in its application for its Historic District to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

This is an undeniable fact and can not be questioned.

Ty Seidule knew it too and wrote about it in Robert E. Lee and Me yet he left it out of the naming commission’s report to Congress. Why?

Because he knew that if he told the truth – that the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery surrounded by over 500 Southern graves stands 100% for reconciliation and the reunification of our country – it would not be in the naming commission’s remit and he would not be able to destroy the monument to satisfy his personal hatred, and build up his Woke leftist credentials since he is now in academia.

Seidule lied and misled Congress by leaving out critical facts he knew to be true.

Elizabeth Warren’s legislation has ripped the fabric of our country apart and you can not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Micaela Burrow writes about the naming commission’s report:

The final report called for the removal of the Col. John S. Mosby from display on the Ranger Memorial, as well as “the names of all Confederates from paver stones on the Ranger Memorial Walk leading to the Ranger Memorial (including but not limited to William Quantrill, George Bowman, and Jackson Bowman).”

But, two of the Rangers noted – Mosby and Morgan – do not deserve to have their names scrubbed, Stringham said in the letter notifying Rangers of the changes.

“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,” Stringham wrote.

For example, Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan was wrongly identified with the Confederacy as Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan, according to Stringham. Daniel Morgan served on the side of the colonies during the Revolutionary War and was a hero in the Battle of the CowPens.

And while Col. Mosby made his name as a Ranger on the Confederate side, he claimed to oppose slavery and went on to support Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s presidential bid and serve as consul in China, according to the National Museum of American History.

“I specifically remember being taught about the leadership and strategy of Col. Mosby, whose courage and innovation was the envy of both allies and adversaries alike. The senior Ranger [non-commissioned officer] who taught me about Mosby, and who praised his prowess as a Ranger and officer, was an African American who was raised in the deep south during segregation and who had fought in a Ranger Company in Vietnam,” Mike Simpson, who served under Stringham in the 1st Ranger Battalion from 1984 to 1988, told the DCNF.

Removing names from the Ranger Memorial and the ongoing attempt to destroy the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery smack of what the Nazis did to the Jews in the 1930s.

It is beneath the dignity of the United States of America but quite OK with the Woke trying to destroy our country.

Micaela Burrow ends with:

The Ranger Handbook contains a history section documenting major contributions of Rangers since before the Revolutionary War. Tactical innovations of both Morgan and Mosby led to the elevated position of Rangers within the Army today, the handbook says.

“Rangers throughout the force lead their formations, set the example for fellow Soldiers, and remain ready to defend the United States against its enemies,” the handbook states.

“As a young Ranger, I was taught that our Ranger history was one of the most important things about our identity as a Regiment,” Simpson told the DCNF.

But, Fort Benning leadership chose to overlook those contributions to gain notice from their superiors, according to William Thibeau, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life.

“Until this egregious whitewash of history, Rangers of the modern era stood on the shoulders of this legacy, not to blindly affirm everything, but to fulfill the Ranger Creed and the Charter to which every Army Ranger pledges his life. But now, it’s also about politics and the woke mission to erase history,” Thibeau, also an Army Ranger veteran, told the DCNF.

Please get every veteran and patriotic American you know to write Congress and their governors and attorneys general and tell them you are OUTRAGED that Elizabeth Warren and the Woke naming commission has caused names to be removed from the Ranger Memorial. Those names must be restored IMMEDIATELY.

Tell Congress and governors to get involved and STOP the ongoing efforts to demolish the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, which would desecrate Arlington National Cemetery for all time.

Stand up and fight!

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE MONEY to Defend Arlington’s litigation in defense of the Confederate Memorial. It would already be gone if it wasn’t for Defend Arlington and their many allies who care about our country and its history.

The Army will file a motion to dismiss our law suit any day now so time is of the essence so we can continue paying our crack legal team.

Kirk Lyons of the Southern Legal Resource Center writes:

Check here for your State Historic Preservation Office – https://ncshpo.org/directory/. Contact Kirk D. Lyons at 828-712-2115 for a sample letter/ and or game-plan for calling them to get them involved. All these SHPOs should have been contacted by the Army regarding the removal or demolition of the Confederate Reconciliation Monument. We need to goad the SHPOs to actively get their Governor/Attorney General involved in putting pressure on the Army to include filing a lawsuit to stop removal, demolition.

See also:

“After Pentagon Erases Names from Ranger Memorial – America’s Heroes Take a Powerful Stand” by Ben Dutka, May 13, 2023:

https://pjnewsletter.com/pentagon-ranger-memorial-heroes/

AND

“160-Plus Retired Military Brass Urge Congress To Root Out DOD’s Poisonous ‘Diversity’ And ‘Equity’ Programs” by Samuel Boehlke, May 24, 2023:

https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/24/160-plus-retired-military-brass-urge-congress-to-root-out-dods-poisonous-diversity-and-equity-programs

Scroll down to contribute and for other valuable information, and God Bless America!]

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington Fundraising Site where you can help save Moses Ezekiel’s MAGNIFICENT 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery by Buying Outstanding Merchandise featuring BEAUTIFUL images from the monument. Art critics have said that every image on the monument is a work of art by itself. There are all kind of things like shirts, hats, hoodies, clocks, art prints, tote bags, note cards, stickers, ipad skins and cases, cell phone cases and skins, wall art, coasters, mugs, pins, throw pillows, water bottles, journals, magnets, etc.! ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE DEFENSE FUND! Go spend some time on this site! You will love it!

Shop Now

 

Defend Arlington’s recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

 

Here is a link to Defend Arlington’s donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND. You can also pay with Zelle. Send to

DefendArlington@gmail.com.

Please Donate Now — THANK YOU!

Click Here to Donate AND Share on Facebook, et al.

 

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

 

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington’s 385 Page Book of White Papers

 

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, “The Arlington Confederate Monument,” produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

 

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington’s attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

 

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is naming commission vice chair. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled “The Civil War Was Not for Slavery.”

Click Here for Bode Lang’s excellent video

 

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

 

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

Take action TODAY!

NOTES:

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¹ Faust, This Republic of Suffering, xii. She cites James M. McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) pp. 3, 177, n. 56.

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ⁱ Micaela Burrow, ‘Covers Up History'” Retired Army Rangers Hammer The Pentagon For PUrging Confederates From The Ranger Memorial, May 5, 2023, https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/05/retired-rangers-warn-of-whitewashing-history-after-pentagon-scrubs-confederate-names-from-memorial, accessed 5-18-23.

ⁱⁱ Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank, Complicity, How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery (New York: Ballantine Books, Copyright 2005 by The Hartford Courant Company), 110.

ⁱⁱⁱ Dwight D. Eisenhower letter, August 9, 1960, to Leon W. Scott, in “Dwight D. Eisenhower in Defense of Robert E. Lee,” August 10, 2014, Mathew W. Lively, https://www.civilwarprofiles.com/dwight-d-eisenhower-in-defense-of-robert-e-lee/, accessed 5-3-20.

^iv Basil L. Gildersleeve, The Creed of the Old South, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1915; reprint: BiblioLife, Penrose Library, University of Denver (no date given), 26-27.