Let's Stop Tearing Down and Start Building
Estimated read time: 7 minutes
Dear Honorable Council Members:
Please accept the following letter as my statement I wish to be made part of the public record regarding the Talbot Boys Resolution. It is what I would've said at the public hearing on 28 JUL had you held a real public hearing. No, COVID-19 is not an excuse to deny a full public hearing before you vote on a resolution most Talbot County residents haven't heard.
First and foremost, I am a veteran and offended by the proposal. It is obvious the persons responsible for drafting the resolution never served in the military. It is also obvious the loudest voices demanding the removal of the Talbot Boys, for whatever their personal reasons, chose not to serve in the military. The proposed resolution is a spit in the face to all veterans past, present, and future.
The Talbot Boys is a veterans' memorial, as eloquently defined five years ago by Mr. Pack. Cancel culture attitudes, history revisionist explanations, and changing personal opinions doesn't change the fact the Talbot Boys is a veterans' memorial. The resolution recognizes this fact because it went to great lengths to justify the Talbot Boys removal by removing any war memorial. Problem is, a veterans' memorial is not a war memorial.
Veterans are not perpetrators of war. Our politicians, and business leaders who help finance the war, are the perpetrators. Veterans are victims of the war, goaded to fight by believing they are fighting for the Constitution, country, and community. No one today can say with certainty why a Confederate soldier fought. The fact plantation owners financed the war is not a reflection of why the soldier fought.
We can't ask a Confederate soldier why he fought, but go ahead, ask Iraqi veterans why they fought. Did they fight because they wanted to finish what George H Bush started and his son, George W. Bush, decided to finish? Did they fight because they thought there were weapons of mass destruction over there? Did they fight because they only wanted to kick some Muslim ass even if they had nothing to do with the World Trade Center bombing?
No. They joined the military and fought because they held a strong sense of civic duty to defend the Constitution that makes this country great, defend their country that tries its best to live up to the Constitution, and defend their communities that provide them the freedom to speak out as I am speaking out now.
Your resolution, as written, means anyone who wants to erect a memorial to our Iraqi veterans from Talbot County is limited to a cold, granite base with the soldiers name and nothing more. No mention of his/her regiment he/she proudly served with. No mention of the conflict they fought.
A simple name on a cold, granite base and nothing more.
As a veteran, I shudder to think my remembrance of my service will be reduced to this minimalist recognition. I didn't serve to earn a name on a granite block. My fellow veterans, the Talbot Boys, didn't fight to be spat upon, relegated to an obscure museum or cemetery to be forgotten, and hauled away by the trashman after no one can remember why the memorial was saved.
Some day our memories of the Civil War will fade away much like the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 is almost faded from our collective memories except for two key points - the birth of a new and idealistic nation founded on the belief the government is of the people, by the people, and for the people and, of course, our Star Spangled Banner.
It's doubtful the Civil War will fade from our collective memories any time soon, but the veterans of the Civil War have powerful lessons to teach us as long as we don't simplify the story to the good guys on stallions rode in to defeat the dumb hillbillies plodding along on donkeys narrative being pushed today.
Look at the resolution if you doubt what I say.
The resolution goes to great lengths to erase any "militarism" from a veterans' memorial. Using the Talbot Boys as an example, the resolution points out flags, such as the Confederate flag on the Talbot Boys, cannot be represented. The wording of the resolution makes the American flag representation questionable and up to debate.
Memorials also cannot designate the war fought, such as CSA. I doubt anyone would object to "Iraqi War" or "Gulf War" on a future monument, but the resolution forbids the annotation of war on any memorial on county property. Any war memorial on county grounds is limited to a name on a cold, empty granite block with no reference to the soldier's service or conflict fought.
And then the resolution attacks the description of the soldier. "The young soldier stands chin up, hat tipped back, holding a Confederate flag at his left side with both hands...." The framers of the resolution let their own racism and prejudices color the description of the monument. As worded, the resolution describes the soldier as a proud and defiant soldier.
Let the record show that at least one person (and probably a whole lot more) view the statue as a young man holding a symbol he fought under, but concealing it in remorseful regret. There is nothing proud in the young soldier's face. Just remorse and the age old question that haunts every veteran written in his eyes. "Just what the Hell did I fight for?"
Here's the bottom line using our most recent wars. Muslims (particularly the Muslim-Americans with roots in Iraq or Afghanistan) may some day find any memorial to our soldiers "fighting terrorism" offensive. Whether such destructive revisionism results in conflict tomorrow or over 150 years from now is immaterial. The net result is the pages being written today of "tear down anything offensive" versus "let's build a meaningful lesson for tomorrow" may very well cause our fight on terrorism to be ripped from the pages of history by a future generation who thinks we were hateful, divisive idiots who suppressed the Muslim perspective.
Why do I say that?
Look at the resolution. All the examples of what won't be allowed in future veteran memorials is an extraction of the "offensive" connotations of CSA and the Confederate flag, a flag that Richard Potter admitted in an interview five years ago that, at first, he didn't even realize the flag was Confederate nor the monument honored Confederate soldiers until he looked more closely. He was only looking for a way to "move his generation forward," as he stated in a Spy Magazine interview. He found his potential legacy in destroying the Talbot Boys, perhaps unaware the memorial is not a Confederate memorial, but a veterans' memorial.
Now I have to ask. How does tearing a memorial to veterans down, who have been dead for more than a hundred years, fix the racial injustices of today? I challenge Corey Pack, Pete Lesher, Richard Potter, and any other supporters of demolishing the Talbot Boys to explain exactly how did this veterans' memorial lead to the death of George Floyd and all the racial injustices we see on the news every day?
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| Regardless the color on the outside, they're all the same on the inside |
County Roads are all Black except for maybe one token White. Blacks make up around 12% of
Talbot's population so why are Blacks so over-represented in the correction department trash detail? Whether it's the number of Blacks police choose to charge with misdemeanors as opposed to Whites, or judges who serve more prison sentences to Blacks for misdemeanor charges than Whites, or a correctional system that views menial tasks such as trash pick up are best performed by Blacks, something is wrong with the racial make up of the trash detail. Why hasn't anyone gone after answers as vigorously as they have gone after dead veterans?
Over in Dover we had a state trooper kicking a Black suspect's face like a soccer ball. The dispatch call describing the suspect and what he was wearing only matched in that the suspect was Black. He wore nothing as described in the dispatch call. At the trial, Corporal Torres (an instructor at the Delaware State Police Academy) testified that kicking a suspect in the jaw like a soccer ball is a good defensive move and one he would like to teach at the police academy. The officer who broke the suspect's jaw and Corporal Torres are still police officers. (As a side note, Caroline County hired the officer who played soccer with a suspect's face. He was involved in a Black teen's death at his new post. In his defense, yes, it appears the officer wasn't to blame, but the story does illustrate what happens in Delaware can cross over to Maryland.) Why hasn't anyone scrutinized our state police and their training practices as vigorously as they have scrutinized and judged dead veterans?
As I drive around Talbot, there's no mistaking the "White neighborhoods" from the "Black neighborhoods." It's hard to know if the neighborhoods can be defined as such because of some sort of institutionalized racism (such as White realtors steer potential home buyers away from Black neighborhoods) or how much is socio-economic discrimination, that is Black people have less educational and economic opportunities than their White counterparts to afford nicer homes in nicer neighborhoods. But there's no mistaking the segregation.
COVID-19 provides at least a partial answer. The pandemic has disproportionately affected minorities, particularly Blacks and Latinos. Blacks and Latinos are over-represented in the low end pay scale, that is the pay scale below a living wage. Living wage is often argued at $15/hour, but in Talbot it's more like $21/hour. As a national average, it is more like $18/hour. The less than living wage jobs were deemed "essential," putting our lowest paid citizens who can least afford to get sick at a high risk.
Why hasn't anyone fought to erase the racial injustices in housing, employment, and pay scales with as much conviction as they have gone after veterans to erase all memory of them?
So I ask every member of the Council who might vote "yea" for the resolution that redefines the phrase, "our heroes in uniform" as an empty platitude...how does tearing down the Talbot Boys and sanitizing any future veterans' memorial so as not to offend anyone solve the problems I outlined above?
I also ask every council member and the president of the Talbot branch of the NAACP to go on record and answer why tearing down a veterans' memorial of long dead soldiers will atone the death of George Floyd.
Instead of tearing down and destroying history, we should be reaching across the aisle and building a somber reminder of what war, bigotry, and racism brings upon us lest we repeat it again. Let's build a courtyard memorial park to our veterans where their voices scream, "Look what you've done and created. Now fix it so I haven't fought in vain."
This proposed resolution is the work of a handful of vocal loudmouths and at least two Council members, one of whom ran in the last Council election arguably to remove the Talbot Boys and for no other reason. I challenge the County Council to show the public polls of Talbot citizens who support and oppose this resolution. Their collective voice counts, not Pack, Lesher, or Potter's voices.
Anything less is a prime example of the good ol' boys network getting what they want at the expense of what the people...and honorable veterans...want.
TL;DR Folks:
Talbot County Council will hold a public meeting on Tuesday, 28 JUL. Above is my submission to become a part of the public record. Make your voice heard and call, email, or write the Council. Details of how you can make a difference available here. Feel free to use any of the ideas expressed here.
Posted by A Drunk Redneck
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