Burning Coals of Shame

(March 19, 2023) Last week during the public comments segment of a Zoom meeting with an Army subcommittee that will be advising Arlington National Cemetery about the future of its Confederate (Reconciliation) Memorial designed by Moses Ezekiel, I learned that some other countries are more respectful of their former opponents than is the Army’s Renaming Commission that wants to remove the memorial. Theron Walker of Charleston, South Carolina provided one moving example about a monument involving Turkish and British Commonwealth soldiers that fought each other during the World War I Gallipoli Campaign. Commonwealth dead that could not be reached by the survivors on their side were buried by the Turks where they now remain in respectfully maintained cemeteries. 

In 1985 Australia erected a cenotaph to the dead of both armies now standing on the ANZAC Parade within the capital city of Canberra. Its words are attributed to Mustafa Kemal who became known as Atatürk during his fifteen years as President of the Turkish Republic from 1923 to 1938. During Gallipoli Kemal was a Turkish divisional commander. The inscription in Canberra reads: 

[To] Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country [Turkey]. Therefore, rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours … You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are at peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

In contrast to such noble sentiments, the brutality of the Army Renaming Commission’s trash-everything-Confederate dogma may someday leave them with such bitter regret that will feel as if someone has dumped burning coals of shame on their heads. It eventually happened to the cultural elite of the 1960s and 70s who ridiculed, or merely failed to appreciate, the returning Vietnam vets.  

End The Madness

The following is a public statement by Rick Sapp to the Advisory Committee of Arlington National Cemetery concerning the Confederate Memorial in that cemetery.

(March 16, 2023) Thank you for the opportunity to make a statement today. My father is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was a career naval officer who flew combat missions in Vietnam. While I can’t be certain he would agree with all I am about to say,

I believe he would, and I say it in his honor. There are three reasons you must stop the destruction of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

The first is that it is the right thing to do. It is right to let those who decided to erect the monument a century ago to continue being heard. It is the height of arrogance to think we know better than the Union Veterans who attended the unveiling. Who are we to say three different Presidents of the United States were wrong? One of them was a Union veteran. It is right to let their efforts at reconciliation be a beacon for today and the future.

The second reason to save the Ezekiel monument to reconciliation is that calls for its destruction are political, even in the military. General Mark Milley is on record calling Southerners who fought for the Confederacy traitors. He did this while testifying in Congress. The Vice Chair of the Naming Commission, Ty Seidule, called Confederates traitors in a celebratory Tweet announcing the completion of the Naming Commission’s reports. You may agree Confederate leaders were traitors, but that view is as political now as it was when Republicans in Congress said so in the 1860s. No Confederate was even tried for treason.

The third reason is that you have an opportunity to turn the tide. To say enough is enough. Confederates are low hanging fruit. Think for a minute. We are contemplating destroying a memorial in a cemetery. General Eisenhower led a segregated military. Now there is a fort named after him. There is already talk that the USS Stennis should be renamed because Stennis was a segregationist.

Please end the madness. It is the right thing to do. The calls for destruction are political. Your courage is required to turn the tide. Thank you.

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Firepower is a fictional account of the Confederate Secret Service’s efforts to block the adoption of repeating rifles by Northern armies. It connects-the-dots of genuine historical events and people to develop an otherwise unseen picture that explains the Union Army’s reluctance to deploy repeating rifles.