GOP Lawmakers Demand Pentagon Stop Removal of Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery

House Republicans are aiming to block the Pentagon from removing a Confederate memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.

A group of GOP lawmakers led by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday demanding he keep the Reconciliation Monument, also known as the Confederate Memorial, in place until the end of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process.

The monument was slated for removal by the Pentagon’s Naming Commission, a panel tasked with renaming and removing military installations named after the Confederacy in the wake of the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

{snip}

“Despite bipartisan support for this monument, the Naming Commission, established by the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, clearly overstepped its legislative authority when it recommended that the Department of the Army remove the Reconciliation Monument from Arlington National Cemetery,” the lawmakers wrote.

“[T]he Reconciliation Monument does not honor nor commemorate the Confederacy; the memorial commemorates reconciliation and national unity.

“Furthermore, the Naming Commission’s authority explicitly prohibits the desecration of grave sites. Considering the hundreds of gravestones encircling the monument, it would be impossible for these graves to remain untouched if the Department of the Army proceeds with its proposed removal of the monument {snip}”

{snip}