They think highly of themselves and that you are stupid. People with real jobs, where a lack of performance has consequences, know better. You don’t have to look hard at Naming Commission report to find the kind of arrogance that leads to smart people looking silly or worse.

A major focus of the Naming Commission was to change the names of forts from Confederate army officers to someone or something else. The commission made a big deal about the number names submitted and reviewed. The appendix contains roughly 2,000 names of individuals along with group, mission, values, location, and event names. The appendix also contains the names that were semi-finalists and finalists. There are biographical sketches of the leading contenders.

In her “Message From the Chair”, Admiral (Ret) Michelle J. Howard says:

“We realized quickly that we had more heroes than we did bases to name. And we were overwhelmed with the greatness of the American Soldier – from those who gave their entire adult lives to the Army, to those who sacrificed themselves in valorous acts.”

The commission recommended that Fort Bragg become Fort Liberty. Do they not review their own material for the logic of messages? Could they not see that it is incongruent to say there were more heroes than Forts to name, yet chose Liberty?

In their rationale for why they recommended Liberty the commission tell the biggest lie of the report:

“In the American Civil War, the United States Army fought for the freedom of four million men, women, and children.”

There is not an honest historian from any era who would support this claim. It shows their real was mission to tarnish the image of the South while aggrandizing the North with ahistorical nonsense. It is disturbing to find this level of propaganda in a US Government report.