After the Army erased names on the Ranger Memorial believed to be associated with the Confederacy, 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.
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 commission dishonor the Rangers commemorated, but hiding the names denies free expression of those who contributed to the memorial for the sake of political clout, retired Rangers told the DNCF.
“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.”
From the New York Times review of Jay Winik’s book “April 1865 The Month that Saved America”
“ Most civil wars, Winik declares, ”end quite badly.” Perhaps no event in our history was ever more contingent than Appomattox: it was not, Winik says, ”preordained.” Lee could have opted for anarchy; Grant could have behaved less generously. But to their eternal credit, the two great soldiers chose peace. So, in Winik’s words, ”men were not hanged, they were saluted . . . they were not humiliated or beaten, they were embraced. Some of this was by design; much of it occurred totally spontaneously. All of it mattered.”
In our current state of affairs…we hang…we humiliated and, this occurs by design and totally deliberate.