World Net Daily ... It is unfortunate the New York Times (NYT) editorial board chose Memorial Day – a day revered by the military to honor its fallen warriors – to publish an editorial denigrating those in uniform. 

Most revealing is the so-called evidence to "support" its opinion piece, "Why Does the U.S. Military Celebrate White Supremacy?"

 

The article accuses the military of celebrating white supremacy because several U.S. military bases remain named after leaders from the losing side of the American Civil War. Confederate generals' names attached to Fort Benning in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas and others apparently stoke the editorial board's collective anger. 

With self-righteous indignation, it claims, "It is time to rename bases for American heroes – not racist traitors."

 

Sadly, the editorial board ignored a Memorial Day speech given 136 years ago by a future U.S. Supreme Court justice.

 

It was the Civil War that gave birth to Memorial Day – a day originally known as Declaration Day. As those who died on our Civil War battlefields were put to rest during the conflict, citizens placed flowers upon their graves. 

This custom began about the same time in a number of cities, leading to at least half a dozen places now claiming to be its birthplace. In May 1865, the day was observed in Charleston, South Carolina, primarily by African Americans.

 

In 1868, Gen. John Logan, who commanded the Grand Army of the Republic, issued an order making May 30 a day for "strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion," clearly excluding Southerners for their "rebellious tyranny." 

The bitterness of the conflict spread to cemeteries as well. Some Confederate dead were buried in Arlington National Cemetery but their families initially were forbidden to lay flowers on the graves of loved ones.

 

Sectional Civil War wounds remained open until after World War I, at which point North and South came together to honor the nation's dead on the same day. Declaration Day officially became Memorial Day, to be celebrated the last Monday in May, to honor all Americans who fell on battlefields in our wars.

 

In 1884, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had fought on the Union side during the Civil War, delivered a speech for the ages on Memorial Day, seeking to unite a divided America.

 

Holmes noted that he and his fellow Union comrades had been driven during the war by a belief that their cause was just and noble. 

"But," he explained, "we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred convictions that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them as every man with a heart must respect those who give all for their belief.

 

Author Ambrose Bierce, who also saw combat as a Union soldier, surviving some of the war's most intense battles, further underscored Holmes' theme. Despite being haunted by the war for the rest of his life, Bierce showed tremendous compassion for those who fought for the Confederacy. 

His poem titled, "To E.S. Salomon," written to a Union officer who did not share a similar compassion, memorialized Bierce's scorn for those failing to honor all the war's dead. 

Two stanzas from his poem make this particularly clear:

 

 

A reality of every war in which America has fought is that the passage of time heals wounds, allowing friend and foe to embrace in spite of the disparate ideologies that drove them in the past. The allure of the "band of brothers" calls, once the guns of war have fallen silent, for warriors to look for the common ground that eluded them in wartime. 

This has happened with one-time enemies Japan and Germany, with whom we have buried the hatchet as they rejected the extremism that drove them to war earlier.

 

Those who fought for the South during the Civil War, given time, would have made a similar transition, accepting the North's ideology. Yet the NYT wants to freeze their pro-slavery mindset for eternity, removing any suggestion we honor them for fighting for what they believed in at that time. 

The Times seeks to toss Generals Benning, Bragg and Hood atop the ash heap of history, ignoring the fact battlefield defeat generates a seed for ideological change.

 

It was disgraceful for the NYT editorial board to use Memorial Day – a day we should be honoring all our fallen warriors – to make such a claim. Like Salomon, it draws "that ancient blade, the ass's jaw and shake(s) it o'er a hero's grave" by calling for the U.S. military to rename bases named after our Confederate warriors. 

The editorial board fails to grasp what Holmes suggested 136 years ago – it matters not whether the soldier falls towards you or at your side, all the war's dead deserve to be honored.

 

Despite the coronavirus risks of doing so, many Americans visited war memorials to pay their respect to our battlefield dead this Memorial Day. 

It would have been nice for the New York Times to be similarly respectful.