Latest news with #TySeidule
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Confederate monument being restored on Hegseth's anti-woke quest will cost $10M, military says
A U.S. Army official revealed Wednesday that the restoration of a Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery is set to cost about $10 million over two years. The official added that the monument would include panels that would share the context of the history behind the memorial, which will be refurbished and its base replaced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the return of the monument on social media on Tuesday evening. 'I'm proud to announce that Moses Ezekiel's beautiful and historic sculpture — often referred to as 'The Reconciliation Monument' — will be rightfully ... returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site,' Hegseth wrote on X. 'It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don't believe in erasing American history—we honor it.' This comes less than two years after it was taken down following the recommendation of an independent commission. The monument, which was put up in 1914, was created by Ezekiel, a sculptor and Confederate veteran. The monument includes a classical female figure, which represents the South, along with sanitized depictions of slavery. The commission, mandated by Congress, stated in 2022 that the memorial, as well as a number of other military assets referencing the Confederacy, should be removed or renamed. The commission vice chair, retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, said the group thought the memorial to be "problematic from top to bottom." In addition to the sanitized depictions of slavery, the monument also featured a Latin phrase stating that the South's secession from the Union was a worthy 'lost cause.' The false interpretation of the reasons behind the outbreak of the Civil War suggests that it was a conflict about the power of the federal government rather than slavery. Hegseth has gone to great lengths to go against the recommendations of the commission by changing back the names of several Army bases to their names with connections to the Confederacy, by highlighting different people. After the recommendations by the commission, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, was renamed Fort Liberty. Hegseth changed it back to Fort Bragg in February, but by honoring Army Pfc. Roland Bragg who received a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his courage during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which pushed back against efforts to reinterpret U.S. history. "Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame,' it said. The order claimed that the Smithsonian museums had "come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' It also ordered the Interior Department to reinstate statues and displays that had been "removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology." In the same vein, the National Park Service announced Monday that it would return the statue of Confederate brigadier General Albert Pike to its previous position in Judiciary Square in the nation's capital after it was pulled down amid Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump says he's restoring the names of military bases that honored Confederate soldiers
FORT BRAGG, NC — President Donald Trump says he's restoring the names of military bases that the U.S. changed because they paid tribute to Confederate soldiers. Delivering remarks at Fort Bragg, which had been designated Fort Liberty before his administration reverted the installation to its previous name, Trump said the Pentagon planned to rename seven other bases. "We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee. We won a lot of battles out of those forts — it's no time to change," Trump said. "And I'm superstitious, you know, I like to keep it going right." Trump has long sought to keep the original base names in place. He vetoed legislation at the end of his first term, in 2020, that authorized the creation of an independent commission to recommend name changes. Congress repassed the bill, which came in the wake of racial justice protests, with bipartisan support. The Department of Defense restored the names of two military bases upon Trump's return to office — Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C. and Fort Benning in Georgia, which was briefly called Fort Moore. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth skirted the commission by finding soldiers from later wars who shared a surname with the once-honored Confederates. More: Confederate names are being scrubbed from US military bases. The list of ideas to replace them is 30,000 deep. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, who was the vice chair of the commission, said Trump is "overturning the will of the American people through their elected representatives who set up the Naming Commission," which selected "true American heroes who fought for our great nation and reflect the best of our values." The retired one-star general, who is the former head of the history department at the United States Military Academy at West Point, said Confederate soldiers "chose treason to preserve and expand human bondage. They represent the worst of America." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump returns to Confederate base names
Washington Post
11-02-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Fort Bragg is back. Stop the re-renaming of Army bases there.
Ty Seidule is a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who served as vice chair of the Naming Commission and is now a professor of history at Hamilton College. Connor Williams, who teaches at Middlebury College, was the commission's lead historian. Their forthcoming book is 'A Promise Delivered: Ten American Heroes and the Battle to Rename Our Nation's Military Bases.'
