To the Editor:

The moving or destroying of historical monuments is a very dangerous slippery slope as far as preserving the country’s history is concerned. If we move or destroy every monument that is hurtful to some community we will have no monuments left. A few examples are Jamestown, Williamsburg, Algonquin War, French and Indian War, Plains wars and many others we have monuments to and to the people that fought them. I am positive these are hurtful to the Native Americans, who we took all their land from and worse, systematically and purposefully attempted to exterminate them from the earth.

Remember famous Union General Phillip Sheridan’s statement, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

The Mexican War, which Mexican citizens see was nothing more than a land grab from Mexico, and the War for Texas Independence and the last stand at the Alamo where American immigrants were taking Texas land from Mexico. I guess we need to remove the Alamo, also.

No need to mention the American Civil War, there already is too much discussion about that.

The Spanish-American War that Spanish Americans see as just a land grab from Spain. World War One: I am sure we can find German-Americans whose ancestors were killed by Americans in that war. World War Two: I am sure we can find Japanese, German and Italian Americans and Americans of other heritage, whose civilian ancestors were killed by the hundreds of thousands in that war, such as the planned terror bombing by the Allies, designed to break the enemies’ resolve, by indiscriminate bombing and killing of civilians and the total destruction of cities such as Dresden, Germany.

I am sure there are many Arab-Americans that are offended by monuments to all the wars we have fought and people we have killed in the Middle East. If we add taking down the monuments to every slave owner, we have to take down almost every monument to our founding fathers also.

My point is not that I am un-American. It is that history is history, good and bad. Sometimes America had to do what it had to do to expand or survive. These monuments are mostly to soldiers that did what they were told to do and did not question the orders from the government they lived under. Many are to soldiers buried and never found, basically their tombstones. The point can easily be seen, if we take down a monument because it is offensive to one group, it’s only fair if we take down them all. Slavery was a travesty, but nothing worse than what was done to the Native American and some others.

The saddest thing is that the attempt to move Confederate monuments is causing much more racial animosity than people realize and giving the cowardly murderer from Charleston exactly what he wanted when he committed the murders. Do we really want to reward him for what he did and tell him he was a success?

Sincerely,
Volpe Boykins
Carrsville