Congress Votes To Rewrite History of Military Bases throughout the United States

Photo: Diginomica.com

A few weeks ago, amidst the protests, I was discussing the removal of statues in cities across the U.S. with a friend.  His position was that such statutes remind pedestrians and motorists, along with tourists of the slave trade promoted by the white elitists of our nation.  I suggested why not remove all of the street names too?  He agreed.  That would mean to strip our country of a specific part of history.



I am in favor of such a move. I do wonder how that will transpire looking into the future?  What will future discussions look like with the removal of history?  Especially as generations change over time, and word of mouth is silenced?  I do not pretend to have an answer either way.



Congress passed an economic package for defense spending, which included a large amount of money to remove (rewrite) historical statues or landmarks from military bases.  Recent reporting by Politico Defense briefly outlines the spending:

VETO PROOFING: The Republican-led Senate defied President Donald Trump’s threat of a veto on Thursday and overwhelmingly passed its $741 billion defense policy legislation that would force the removal of Confederate names from Army bases. Connor O’Brien has the details of Thursday’s action.

Senators, voting to adopt the National Defense Authorization Act in an 86-14 blowout, joined the House in passing the bills containing a similar provision with majorities large enough to overcome a veto.

The measure, S. 4049 (116), requires a three-year process to scrub names, monuments and paraphernalia honoring the Confederacy and its leaders from military bases and other assets, while the House version, H.R. 6395 (116), passed Tuesday, would force the renaming of bases within a year.

Looking into the future, changing the names of U.S. military bases along with removing statues across the United States is a good start toward rewriting history.  The larger question is, how will the behavior of Americans toward one another change over time?  Because it is one perspective to change the visual aspect of history (i.e., street names, statues, Base names, etc.), it is quite another make massive change across the more significant part of history -- behavior.



People's behavior is the culprit to the death of George Floyd. Action is the culprit behind people's ignorance.  People's ignorance is due to the inability to understand or change with the changing times in society.  Each of us needs to work together to promote change across the community as a whole.  That is the only way to change over time as a nation.