Fort Benedict Arnold?

To the Editor,

This is the right time for Congress to rename the military installations that are now named for Confederate generals. It was never the right time to have named them after these men in the first place.

I am a child of the South. I was born in the South and grew up there, raised by parents who were both Southerners. I was educated in the South through college and graduate school.

I am also a child of the military. My father was a career Army officer. I was born at one of the posts named after a Confederate general, Ft. Lee, and we lived at Fort Benning and Fort Hood. (We lived in other places, too, not named for Confederate generals.) As an adult, I was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army Reserve and attended summer trainings at Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Pickett. (Again, I served and trained in other places that were not named for Confederate generals.)

In my experience of the Army, very little value was placed on where one was stationed, unless it was a war zone. Instead, it was a soldier’s individual accomplishments or the accomplishments of the unit to which one was assigned that might be a source of pride. For the commander in chief to suggest that it would dishonor the soldiers who had been stationed there to rename these facilities is to display his ignorance of what military life is all about. What the current names do accomplish, though, is to keep soldiers of color wary of their service, always wondering if the Army really does have their back.

The United States won the war against the insurrection by the Southern states. Slavery was abolished. But 155 years later we still have institutionalized reminders that racism is rampant. Renaming military posts will not solve the problem of racism, but it will certainly discontinue one reminder of it.

I am loath to stoop to the polemic of the commander-in-chief, but I might suggest that there is no reason to name our military installations in honor of losers.

Linton Stables
Swarthmore