By Col Rob Maness, USAF ret
STARRS Board of Advisors
Liberals are devolving into a fit of hysteria over Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s decision to re-install a memorial known as the “Reconciliation Monument” in Arlington National Cemetery that was removed in 2023. But that narrative misses the point and risks erasing a critical moment in our nation’s past.
Restoring the Reconciliation Monument isn’t about romanticizing the Confederacy – it’s about preserving a complex chapter of American history, fostering true national unity, and rejecting the impulse to sanitize our story.
Far from wrong, this move is a principled stand against historical amnesia.
Erected in 1914, the Reconciliation Monument was commissioned as a deliberate symbol of healing after the Civil War. President William Howard Taft approved its placement in Arlington, where nearly 500 Confederate soldiers, sailors, and civilians are buried in Section 16.
Its designer, Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Jewish Confederate veteran and graduate of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), intended it to represent the reunification of a divided nation. The frieze depicts scenes of Southern life, including Black figures, which detractors interpret as glorifying slavery.
My guest today is one of the litigants who took Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to court to first stop and now restore the monument.
Retired U.S. Army LtCol Ed Kennedy, Jr. enlisted in the Army in 1971 as an infantryman. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1976, retiring in 1997. As an infantry officer, he held a variety of command and staff positions, ending his active-duty career as an assistant professor in the history department of the US Army Command and General Staff College.
Watch:
Who Would Destroy the Reconciliation Monument at This Time of Year?
Leave a Comment