The Marine Corps' top officer has ordered Confederate symbols be removed from all Corps installations
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Marine Corps' top officer has ordered all Confederate-related paraphernalia to be removed from the service's installations.
The military has struggled with Confederate symbols and what they represent; several bases are named after Confederate generals, but the services have kicked out members for ties to white supremacist groups.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger has ordered all Confederate-related paraphernalia to be removed from Marine Corps installations, his spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.
Military analyst B. A. Friedman first tweeted a document showing the commandant's decision on Wednesday. The document did not say when all of the Confederate-related paraphernalia needed to be removed by.
Berger's spokesman confirmed to Task & Purpose that the commandant had sent a directive to his senior staff ordering all installations to get rid of symbols of the Confederate States of America.
"Last week, the Commandant of the Marine Corps directed specific tasks be reviewed or addressed by Headquarters Marine Corps staff," Maj. Eric Flanagan said in an email. "Many of the tasks were published on Twitter Friday. Other tasks not published previously are mostly administrative matters."
"Any official policy decisions, changes or implementation plans will be published via appropriate orders and messages," he continued.
The question of whether Confederate symbols represent heritage or hatred has been vexing for the US military. In January 2016, the Marine Corps refused to allow a man with a large tattoo of a Confederate flag to enlist , yet 10 Army bases are still named for Confederate generals.
Meanwhile, several Marines have been investigated in the past few years for allegedly having links to white supremacist groups, including former Pvt. Vasillios Pistolis, who was kicked out of the Corps after beating counter-protesters at the August 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Two other Marines, Sgt. Michael Chesny and Staff Sgt. Joseph Manning , were discharged after being arrested at a May 2017 pro-Confederate rally in Graham, North Carolina, where they flew a white supremacist banner.
The issue of white supremacists in the military is not limited to the Marine Corps. Alex Fields Jr., who was kicked out of the Army after only four months , sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for using his car to ram counter-protesters at the Charlottesville rally, killing Heather Heyer.
In November, the video network Newsy and the investigative website Bellingcat found that eight service members posted on a now deactivated white supremacist message board while they were on active duty.
Most recently, an Air Force administrative board recently recommended discharging Tech Sgt. Corey Reeves , whom investigators learned was raising money for the white supremacist group Identity Evropa. A review process is currently ongoing.
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I would have thought all symbols of the confederacy would have been removed from all U.S. military bases a long time ago.
The fact that we have military bases named after treasonous confederate generals betrays some areas true allegiances. Funny how we don't have any military based named after Benedict Arnold or King George, but have no issue with our bases named after traitors like Braxton Bragg who was considered among the worst generals of the Civil War since he often had more troops under his command than his opponents but lost anyway with only one exception, where a fellow General ended up coming to his rescue.
"Even Bragg's staunchest supporters admonished him for his quick temper, general irritability, and tendency to wound innocent men with barbs thrown during his frequent fits of anger. His reluctance to praise or flatter was exceeded, we are told, only by the tenacity with which, once formed, he clung to an adverse impression of a subordinate. For such officers—and they were many in the Army of Mississippi—Bragg's removal or their transfer were the only alternatives to an unbearable existence."
Correct action. And only because conservative right wing groups proudly display the Nazi flag along side the Stars and Bars.
Thank you conservatives for denigrating and smearing whatever vestiges of honor, sacrifice and chivalry that could be bestowed on The Confederacy and those tumultuous times
of our American history. Conservatism soils everything.
Identity Evropa is a Russian backed initiative.
about time that someone in the military took a stand concerning the glorification of defeated enemies of the USA that killed our service members.
It's simple really. It's a traitor's flag and those who fly it are traitors. Period.