From Military.com:
“Pentagon Group Lists 750
Names with Confederate Ties It's Thinking of Replacing on Bases, Streets and
More”
A federal commission charged with
reviewing and replacing the names of signs, streets, memorials and monuments at
U.S. military bases with ties to the Confederacy, released a list of 750
potential targets for renaming. It marks the latest effort by the Pentagon to
reckon with its long history of honoring namesakes tied to the racist rebel
army that fought in the Civil War. The exhaustive list by the Naming
Commission, as the Pentagon group is colloquially known, identifies hundreds of
items named for Confederate leaders, officers and conflicts spotted at military
bases across more than a dozen states, with the majority of them in the South. It
also points to street signs at military bases in Germany as well as Navy
vessels stationed in Japan as having names tied to Confederate leaders and
battles. The vast majority of the listings, over 700 of them, were on Army
posts, followed by roughly 30 at Navy bases and just under a dozen at Air Force
installations. "This list is subject to change as we continue our work
with the Department of Defense to identify all such assets across the service
branches and the department," the Naming Commission said in a press
release.
The Commission will review the
750 items and will decide whether they need to be included in a report
scheduled to be issued to Congress by Oct. 1. Retired Adm. Michelle Howard, the
chair of the Naming Commission, said in the press release that the list will be
updated as the group continues to uncover the history of different names on
military bases. "This work is vital to understand the scope and estimated
cost of renaming or removing Confederate-named assets, and will enable us to
provide the most accurate report possible to Congress," Howard said.
The list highlights streets,
civil works, buildings, paintings, vessels, signs and the names of the military
installations themselves. While a vast majority of the listings are street
names and signs, there are some Army and Navy ships named for Confederate
battles, figures and officers. They include:
Army Ship Names
LCU-2027 Mechanicsville
LCU-2025 Malvern Hill
LCU-2022 Harpers Ferry
LCU-2004 Aldie
LCU-2011 Chickahominy
Navy Ship Names
USS Hunley (decommissioned)
USS Stonewall Jackson
(decommissioned)
The crest of USS Shiloh (CG-67)
USS Chancellorsville (CG-62)
USNS Maury (T-AGS-66)
The crest of USS Vella Gulf
(CG-72)
It's not clear why the USS Hunley
-- named after an engineer who pioneered the first hand-powered submarine for
the Confederate States of America -- and the USS Stonewall Jackson, named in
honor of the infamous Southern general, are on the list. Both vessels were
decommissioned in the mid-1990s.
The list also includes buildings
and streets at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, such
as Lee Barracks, named after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and the U.S. Naval
Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, such as Maury Hall, named after Confederate
naval officer Matthew Maury. Earlier this month, the Naming Commission released
a list of substitutions for Army installations and is slated to hand over a
final plan to Congress by October to rename Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Hood, Texas;
Fort Rucker, Alabama; Fort Polk, Louisiana; Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in
Georgia; and Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia.
The nearly 100 potential
replacement names on the list introduced by the commission on March 17 included
the late Secretary of State Colin Powell, D-Day field commander Gen. Omar
Bradley and World War II supreme Allied commander in Europe turned president
Dwight Eisenhower. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the first Black person to
serve in that position, is expected to announce new names for some of the
country's most iconic military facilities in 2023.
The full list of 750 items
that are being evaluated is available here.
^ These names need to be changed
to better reflect the real history of the US Military. Naming things after the
defeated Confederates was and is just plain stupid. We would never name something
after Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. ^
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