Politics: Statues coming down II

[TIDE-HSV]

I grew up in a town where Grant, Sherman and Jackson street are parallel a block apart. Lee St. isn't far away...

 

[TexasBama]

I grew up in a town where Grant, Sherman and Jackson street are parallel a block apart. Lee St. isn't far away...

And "Albert Sidney" Johnston Street

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Thanks. Forgot that one...

 

[Tug Tide]

5 years since Charlottesville

Five Years After “Unite the Right": Reflections on Charlottesville for Today’s Threat Landscape

What lessons have been learned since this watershed moment on how to counter the growing threat from white supremacist extremism?

www.justsecurity.org

 

[Tidewater]

The man for whom Ft. Rucker will be renamed.

Medal of Honor recipient Michael Novosel saved more than 5,000 in Vietnam ― including his son

“Dustoff.” In 1963 that was the call sign for helicopter pilots who pioneered emergency medical evacuations during the Vietnam War. About 3,000 pilots and crewmen flew unarmed air ambulances, often into heavy fire, to medevac more than 100,000 severely wounded men, and 33 percent became...

www.airforcetimes.com

Something about Chief Warrant Officer Novosel. I went to the Army's Air Assault School at Fort Rucker in August 1984. It is a little bit of a gut check, not Ranger School, but there was a considerable amount of pushups, running, and road marching with rucks. At 21 years of age, it was a bit of a challenge.
Warrant officers can remain on active duty until the age of 62, as long as they pass annual physicals and are healthy. In Chief Novosel's last two weeks on active duty before mandatory retirement, Novosel completed air assault school at Rucker, at the age of 61 and just weeks before turning 62.
Tough old guy.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Something about Chief Warrant Officer Novosel. I went to the Army's Air Assault School at Fort Rucker in August 1984. It is a little bit of a gut check, not Ranger School, but there was a considerable amount of pushups, running, and road marching with rucks. At 21 years of age, it was a bit of a challenge.
Warrant officers can remain on active duty until the age of 62, as long as they pass annual physicals and are healthy. In Chief Novosel's last two weeks on active duty before mandatory retirement, Novosel completed air assault school at Rucker, at the age of 61 and just weeks before turning 62.
Tough old guy.

I played basketball until 62, with guys averaging about 30 years younger than I. Once a guy showed up, overweight and looking older than I, although he was five years younger. He could barely play, but my buds were oohing and ohing over him. I had to remind them that I was older, but I was just taken for granted...

 

[Tidewater]

I played basketball until 62, with guys averaging about 30 years younger than I. Once a guy showed up, overweight and looking older than I, although he was five years younger. He could barely play, but my buds were oohing and ohing over him. I had to remind them that I was older, but I was just taken for granted...

Chief Novosel graduated from the course before mine but the instructors were still talking about him (admiringly).
There were guys in their 20s who did not make it through my course for the physical stuff as well as for the mental stuff. I suppose the same was true for Chief Novosel's course. He made it though.

 

[Tidewater]

Here's the crappy flip side of this coin.
When the name "Fort Liberty" was revealed to the Fort Bragg community ("Home of the Airborne"), it was not well received. I know. I have colleagues who live and work on Bragg today.
If the installation has to have a name change, the community wanted it named after Major General William C. Lee, the "Father of the Airborne." Lee was from Dunn, NC (just up the road from Bragg), graduated from NC State, formed the first American airborne units and commanded the 101st Airborne during its training for Normandy. He suffered a heart attack in April 1944, so he was not allowed to jump into France. He was sent back to the states and died in late 1944. MG Lee was, more and any other man, responsible for the creation of airborne units in the United States Army in the Second World War. There would have been no airborne units in the US Army in the Second World War if not got MG Lee.
Because the process is run by morons and charlatans, we can't name the installation "Fort Lee" despite that being that being the perfect name for the Home of the Airborne.

 

[Tidewater]

Here are a few other examples of how the Commission has missed a chance to say something good.
Fort Lee (the current Fort Lee), is to be renamed Fort Gregg-Adams. Who were Gregg and Adams? Lieutenant General Arthur Gregg was a logistics officer, who desegregated the Fort Lee Officers Club and who also served in Japan, Vietnam and Germany throughout the Cold War. LTC Charity Adams commanded the first unit of African-American women to serve overseas, leading the 6888th Central Postal Directory in England, delivering mail to and from millions of soldiers fighting in Europe. Both served honorably, but neither exactly stormed Omaha Beach or Iwo Jima, or fired a machinegun from atop a burning tank to break up a German attack. The Commission obviously wanted to name Fort Lee after a black person (which is the very definition of racism, by the way), but there was someone from Virginia who did do something truly inspirational: Sgt William Carney, 54th Massachusetts Infantry, MOH from the assault on Battery Wagner (depicted in the film Glory). Fort Carney would have been a much better name for this installation than "Fort Gregg-Adams." The commission could not even decide whether to pander to African-Americans or women, so they split the difference and named the installation after two people, so the fort will stand as a monument to bureaucratic indecisiveness.

Another installation in Virginia will be named after Mary Edwards Walker, "a New York feminist and abolitionist who during the Civil War became the first female surgeon in U.S. Army history and the only woman ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor." She was never even in the Army, and her Medal of Honor was revoked in 1916. The Medal of Honor was awarded very liberally during the Civil War. 18 Union soldiers, for example, were awarded MOHs for picking up Confederate battleflags that had been dropped on the field after Pickett's Charge was over. Walker's medal was just a formal way of saying, "Thank you for your service." Congress later went back and revoked a lot of many Medals of Honor, because they wanted the medal to mean something. Walker's was one of the medals revoked. It was reinstated in 1977 for political reasons. Anyway, Walker was never even in the Army, worked as a contract surgeon, which is commendable, but hardly heroic. Literally hundreds of surgeons served throughout the Civil War. I would go with Fort Sargeant for 1st Lieutenant Ruppert Sergeant, US Army, recipient of the MOH in the Vietnam. 1LT Sargeant was from Virginia.

The third installation being renamed for Col. Barfoot, Medal of Honor winner who settled in Virginia after the Second World War.

Fort Barfoot I get. "Fort Gregg-Adams" is inappropriate and "Fort Walker" is just a travesty. The commission has just fumbled its duty badly.

 

[Crimson1967]

The name also makes it look like it was named for someone named Gregg Adams.

I agree military forts should be named for a true hero warrior or a high ranking leader like Eisenhower.

I can live with the fort being named for the woman surgeon. I imagine she went through a lot to get where she did.

 

[Chukker Veteran]

I grew up in a town where Grant, Sherman and Jackson street are parallel a block apart. Lee St. isn't far away...

I may have told this story, please excuse if it’s a repeat…

There is a house on Sherman Street on the corner of either 8th or 10 Ave, I forget which. Years ago, a lady bought it, it had a Sherman Street address and main entrance…

She declared she could not live on Sherman Street, so she removed the front porch and entrance that faced Sherman Street, and reoriented her house to the side street. She was able to officially change her mailing address to the side street and it’s that way even today. When you look at the house, you can see the main entrance has been switched around.

 

[Crimson1967]

I may have told this story, please excuse if it’s a repeat…

There is a house on Sherman Street on the corner of either 8th or 10 Ave, I forget which. Years ago, a lady bought it, it had a Sherman Street address and main entrance…

She declared she could not live on Sherman Street, so she removed the front porch and entrance that faced Sherman Street, and reoriented her house to the side street. She was able to officially change her mailing address to the side street and it’s that way even today. When you look at the house, you can see the main entrance has been switched around.

What a triggered snowflake.

 

[Tidewater]

The name also makes it look like it was named for someone named Gregg Adams.

I agree military forts should be named for a true hero warrior or a high ranking leader like Eisenhower.

I can live with the fort being named for the woman surgeon. I imagine she went through a lot to get where she did.

I have no doubt she went through a lot. She was not a soldier, however.

 

[CrimsonNagus]

I say we stop naming things after people because you never know what might be uncovered about someone in the future.

 

[JDCrimson]

These are the best examples they could come up with? I just can't understand how these conversations evolve...

The liberal beaucracy is surely a site to behold...

Here are a few other examples of how the Commission has missed a chance to say something good.
Fort Lee (the current Fort Lee), is to be renamed Fort Gregg-Adams. Who were Gregg and Adams? Lieutenant General Arthur Gregg was a logistics officer, who desegregated the Fort Lee Officers Club and who also served in Japan, Vietnam and Germany throughout the Cold War. LTC Charity Adams commanded the first unit of African-American women to serve overseas, leading the 6888th Central Postal Directory in England, delivering mail to and from millions of soldiers fighting in Europe. Both served honorably, but neither exactly stormed Omaha Beach or Iwo Jima, or fired a machinegun from atop a burning tank to break up a German attack. The Commission obviously wanted to name Fort Lee after a black person (which is the very definition of racism, by the way), but there was someone from Virginia who did do something truly inspirational: Sgt William Carney, 54th Massachusetts Infantry, MOH from the assault on Battery Wagner (depicted in the film Glory). Fort Carney would have been a much better name for this installation than "Fort Gregg-Adams." The commission could not even decide whether to pander to African-Americans or women, so they split the difference and named the installation after two people, so the fort will stand as a monument to bureaucratic indecisiveness.

Another installation in Virginia will be named after Mary Edwards Walker, "a New York feminist and abolitionist who during the Civil War became the first female surgeon in U.S. Army history and the only woman ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor." She was never even in the Army, and her Medal of Honor was revoked in 1916. The Medal of Honor was awarded very liberally during the Civil War. 18 Union soldiers, for example, were awarded MOHs for picking up Confederate battleflags that had been dropped on the field after Pickett's Charge was over. Walker's medal was just a formal way of saying, "Thank you for your service." Congress later went back and revoked a lot of many Medals of Honor, because they wanted the medal to mean something. Walker's was one of the medals revoked. It was reinstated in 1977 for political reasons. Anyway, Walker was never even in the Army, worked as a contract surgeon, which is commendable, but hardly heroic. Literally hundreds of surgeons served throughout the Civil War. I would go with Fort Sargeant for 1st Lieutenant Ruppert Sergeant, US Army, recipient of the MOH in the Vietnam. 1LT Sargeant was from Virginia.

The third installation being renamed for Col. Barfoot, Medal of Honor winner who settled in Virginia after the Second World War.

Fort Barfoot I get. "Fort Gregg-Adams" is inappropriate and "Fort Walker" is just a travesty. The commission has just fumbled its duty badly.

 

[Tidewater]

These are the best examples they could come up with? I just can't understand how these conversations evolve...

The liberal beaucracy is surely a site to behold...

Honestly, I think they solicited input from the community, then voted on the suggestions. I have nothing against LTG Gregg nor LTC Adams, I just think we can do better.
If one insists on naming the installations after African-American veterans (rather than just veterans of whatever ethnicity), I think Fort Carney and Fort Sergeant would be pretty cool. Especially Fort Carney.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Honestly, I think they solicited input from the community, then voted on the suggestions. I have nothing against LTG Gregg nor LTC Adams, I just think we can do better.
If one insists on naming the installations after African-American veterans (rather than just veterans of whatever ethnicity), I think Fort Carney and Fort Sergeant would be pretty cool. Especially Fort Carney.

I like the sound of Ft. Sergeant York...

 

[92tide]

These are the best examples they could come up with? I just can't understand how these conversations evolve...

The liberal beaucracy is surely a site to behold...

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

www.thenamingcommission.gov

The Commission received more than 34,000 submissions about renaming through community engagements and a public comment period via its website. Analysis of the recommendations identified 3,670 unique names among the submissions for potential use. Using criteria that will be detailed in the final report, and aided by extensive research by a team of historians, the Commission reviewed the list and conducted deliberations to narrow the list to less than 100 total names. Commissioners then engaged the same groups they met last year, this time via virtual listening sessions March-April 2022, before deliberating final name recommendations and making their selections based on its established criteria in early May 2022....

The Commission established criteria focused on ensuring the names considered for military installations appropriately reflected the courage, values, sacrifices and demographics of the men and women in our armed forces, with consideration given to the local or regional significance of names and their potential to inspire and motivate service members. Full details will be included in the Commission's final report.

 

[Tidewater]

I like the sound of Ft. Sergeant York...

He was in the 82nd Infantry Division.

 

[81usaf92]

I say we stop taking down names if we aren’t even going to consider changing the name Seymour Johnson AFB.