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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConfederate Memorial in Arlington
By T. Rees Shapiro
August 17 at 9:09 PM
On the western edge of Arlington National Cemetery stands a 32-foot-tall bronze hymn to soldiers of a bygone past ...
... It is the Confederate Memorial. A soaring testament to Southern pride, placed in Arlington nearly 50 years after the Civil War ended, the monument features a frieze depicting Rebels shouldering rifles, a black slave following his master and an enslaved woman described on the cemeterys website as a mammy cradling a Confederate officers infant ...
The Arlington cemetery .. is on property administered by the Department of the Army. The Confederate Memorial, erected in the early 20th century, is encircled by 482 graves of Rebel officers, enlisted men and others affiliated with their cause. Plenty of critics support its removal, including the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Association of Black Veterans ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/confederate-memorial-in-arlington-honoring-rebels-on-nations-sacred-ground/2017/08/17/d2be2576-80be-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.0a239b3e0210
Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)I would not mind seeing the entire place disappear
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)Democrat candidate in 2018/2020.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)melm00se
(4,994 posts)part of Robert E. Lee's estate.
It was seized by the government and graves placed as close to the mansion as possible to prevent the Lee's from going back into the house.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Just plan on tossing his bones?
FFS, don't talk nonsense.
Rhiannon12866
(205,994 posts)I've been to Arlington and I agree, it's a cemetery - hallowed ground.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)My wife's grandmother is buried there too. She was in the Navy during WWI and served in Pershing's hq!
Rhiannon12866
(205,994 posts)And especially from WWI! She certainly had a front row seat to history!
My grandfathers both served in WWI. I never met them, they died long before I was born. But my mother's father emigrated from Poland at 18 and they made him a citizen and sent him to France. We really are a nation of immigrants, too.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)She "commanded" her local American Legion for years, and at one point was the oldest living female veteran of WWI (she met the President at the time... I think it was Ronny Raygun?)
Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)Mine would not. My grandfather had the option to be in a military cemetery and I chose otherwise.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)His lungs were damaged by poison gas in the war and he suffered from that the rest of his life.
His burial there honors his service in a solemn way.
I don't consider that glorifying war.
Wars are terrible, terrible things. That doesn't mean we shouldn't honor those who served.
My grandfather had expressed his desire to be buried at Arlington, since he was eligible.
Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)Yeah, that is sure to be a winning idea.
Do you want veterans gravestones issued by the VA ripped out of every cemetery in the nation too?