# Confederate base names going away **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 11, 2020, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855 "2020-12-11T20:23:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/141 "2025-06-11T01:07:30Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Out of the millions of soldiers in US Army history surely there is another “Robert E. Lee”. Yep. Hopefully, once the new signs are up, it will come up that he got a dishonorable discharge, or was a founder of the Communist Party USA, or championed mandatory vaccination of children. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/142 "2025-06-11T01:08:38Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Out of the millions of soldiers in US Army history surely there is another “Robert E. Lee”. There is. I was stationed near the Robert E. Lee Barracks in Germany. We just called it Lee Barracks. It was named after an Army captain who was killed in WWII near there. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/143 "2025-06-11T01:55:24Z")
Somewhat ironic that it’s renamed Fort Bragg by the country’s biggest braggart. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/144 "2025-06-11T04:47:28Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > Out of the millions of soldiers in US Army history surely there is another “Robert E. Lee”. > > There is. I was stationed near the Robert E. Lee Barracks in Germany. We just called it Lee Barracks. It was named after an Army captain who was killed in WWII near there. Quoting myself but I just saw that Lee Barracks has a Wikipedia page which includes information about it’s namesake. It was given back to Germany in the early 90s. > **[Lee Barracks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Barracks)** > > The Lee Barracks were military barracks in Mainz, Germany. It was named after United States Army Captain Robert Elward Lee (1920–1945), who as a first lieutenant had performed a particularly courageous mission on November 17, 1944 (General Order October 11, 1956) during World War II. It was often mistakenly assumed that the barracks was named after the 19th century general of the Army of Northern Virginia Robert Edward Lee. Today, large parts of the Mainz-Gonsenheim district are located on the pr... ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/145 "2025-06-11T05:42:05Z")
I would just rename the base, if at all, after Robert E. Lee’s father, who served with distinction during the Revolutionary War: Maj. Gen. [Henry Lee III - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lee_III) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/146 "2025-06-11T11:06:10Z")
We wouldn’t rename it to anybody Lee. The whole point of trump’s BS is to rename it to honor the famous confederate traitor while not _quite_ actually renaming it for the confederate traitor. It’s the usual lie of a tissue paper thin defense that seems ironclad to his supporters. The whole point of the prior administration(s) efforts to rename bases away from people like Lee was to _stop_ honoring confederate traitors. Anything named “Lee” cannot achieve that goal in the minds of the traitor-lovers we’re trying to reform. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/147 "2025-06-11T11:56:00Z")
Which is it, “barracks was” or “barracks were”? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/148 "2025-06-11T22:29:10Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Which is it, “barracks was” or “barracks were”?. Depends on whether there is one barracks or multiple barracks. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/149 "2025-06-12T00:20:03Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > > > Which is it, “barracks was” or “barracks were”?. > > Depends on whether there is one barracks or multiple barracks. On a U.S. base the term barracks would mean a building where soldiers live. In Germany many of the small bases scattered around were old Wehrmacht facilities that were taken over after the war. Those were usually called kasernes. Kaserne translate to barracks but it usually entailed an entire complex to include living quarters, motor pools, administrative offices etc. So Lee Barracks and other similar facilities were small bases not just living quarters. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/150 "2025-07-09T21:32:00Z")
I don’t really care about those old base names in a ‘whatever’ kinda way. I do care that the current occupier of the White House is a traitor though. That’s kind of the real problem. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/151 "2025-07-14T02:59:15Z")
I can, and do, care about both. But the President’s horribleness in so _many_ damn ways is obviously my bigger concern. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855/152 "2025-07-14T03:18:05Z")
Here’s why, among many other reasons, it matters, > [Americans with Civil War ancestors have greater claim to US, Vance says](https://www.yahoo.com/news/americans-civil-war-ancestors-greater-195139738.html) > Speaking at the conservative think tank Claremont Institute’s Statesmanship Award Dinner in San Diego last weekend, Vance rejected what he termed “the logic of America as a purely creedal nation,” contending that defining citizenship solely through agreement with founding principles is both “over-inclusive and under-inclusive.” He argued this approach would theoretically include “hundreds of millions, maybe billions of foreign citizens who agree with the principles of the Declaration of Independence,” while simultaneously rejecting Americans “that the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) would label as domestic extremists, even though those very Americans had their ancestors fight in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.” In case anyone doesn’t get the subtext, naming bases after Civil War ‘’‘heroes’‘’ is OK because they were _True Americans_ and almost all of the folks that those bases were renamed for were never _True Americans_. This isn’t just about lionizing the wrong side of the Civil War it’s about writing non “MAGA” people from history because “they were never with us”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-base-names-going-away/927855.md?page=7)