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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, overruling his own Pentagon chief, declared Wednesday that he will not entertain the idea of removing the names of Confederate generals such as Robert E. Lee from 10 Army posts, including Fort Hood in Texas, the nation’s largest military installation.
“That is an absolute nonstarter for the president,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters.
“Fort Bragg,” for instance,” is known for the heroes within it, that train there, that deployed from there. And it’s an insult to say to the men and women who left there — the last thing they saw on American soil before going overseas, and in some cases losing their lives — to tell them that what they left was inherently a racist institution because of a name. That’s unacceptable to the President, and rightfully so,” she said.
The announcement comes just two days after the Pentagon abandoned decades of resistance, with Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy saying they “open to a bi-partisan discussion on the topic” — a shift welcomed by civil rights advocates.
Demonstrations against police brutality have rocked U.S. cities for two weeks that prompted Trump to insist on a military response to protests around the country. After initially backing the president, Esper publicly distanced himself from his plan to invoke an 1807 law allowing a president to use federal troops to put down insurrection.
Trump views such independence as disloyalty. The swift public rebuke of Esper follows a familiar pattern when cabinet members cross him: humiliation signaling a chill that sometimes ends in a firing.
McEnany said the president would veto any legislation to change the names of these installations.
Within two hours, NASCAR banned the display of Confederate flags at its races, saying it “runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment.”
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 10, 2020
Three months ago, the Marine Corps banned Confederate symbols as part of an effort to root out white supremacy in the ranks and to end ongoing offense to black personnel.
Pressure has built on the military, and on states and cities, since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where a police officer pinned Floyd’s neck to the ground with his knee for nearly nine minutes.
Fort Hood, the largest U.S. military installation in the world, is named for Gen. John Bell Hood. He graduated from West Point, where the U.S. Army trains future officers and where Trump will deliver a commencement address on Saturday.
It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020
When Hood’s home state, Kentucky, declared itself neutral during the Civil War, he moved to Texas and took command of the Confederacy’s Texas Brigade.
“Gen. Hood was a traitor, one of the worst generals in the Civil War,” Domingo Garcia, a Dallas lawyer who serves as president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, told The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday. “That was a shameful episode in American history in terms of the Confederacy and what it stood for.
LULAC has been pressing to rename Fort Hood for Sgt. Roy Benavidez, a legendary Mexican American Green Beret who survived an especially rough battle during the Vietnam War in 1968, saving eight comrades despite heavy enemy fire and his own severe injuries. President Ronald Reagan awarded him a Medal of Honor in 1981.
Retired Army general and former CIA director David Petraeus, writing Tuesday in The Atlantic, embraced the move to abandon “legacies of systemic racism” by stripping the Confederates’ names off the forts.
“We do not live in a country to which Braxton Bragg, Henry L. Benning, or Robert E. Lee can serve as an inspiration,” he wrote. “The way we resolve these issues will define our national identity for this century and beyond.”
The issue has become a cultural and political flashpoint.
At the Sons of Confederate Veterans, commander-in-chief, Paul Gramling, a retired postal worker from Shreveport, La., was pleased at Trump’s decision.
“These bases were named for these generals out of respect and the kind of military men they were,” he said. “I’m glad to see that President Trump still shows that respect.”
As for NASCAR’s decision, he said, “There’s no way they can make NASCAR a sport for everyone if you’re going to turn around and slap the face of the people who got you where you are….When you’re dealing with Southerners who are conservative minded, politically correct actions will not get you anywhere…. Right now the fad is to destroy everything Confederate, and American.”
Trump also cited the importance of “heritage,” a term invoked by Southerners who defend the right to commemorate their ancestry.
“These monumental and very powerful bases have become part of a great American heritage and a history of winning victory, and freedom,” Trump said on Twitter, a statement his press secretary read at her briefing. “The United States of America trained and deployed our heroes here and won two world wars. My administration will not even consider the renaming of these magnificent and fabled military installations. Our history as the greatest nation in the world will not be tampered with. Respect our military!”
In 2017, clashes between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., sparked a similar national conversation about monuments, schools and military bases named for Confederate heroes.