Fort Loser

This is me in 1984, a perky young SP-4 waiting patiently for someone to auger into Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Braxton Bragg, North Carolina.

At the time I couldn't have picked Braxton Bragg out of a police lineup or told you what the hell he'd done to get a ginormous Army post named after him. But, then I was young and stupid, as young men often are.

Know I know better.

And now ol' Braxton is in the middle of a ginormous shitstorm revolving around the way my country spent a long time treating - and in a lot of ways still treats - those of Us the People a whole bunch of the rest of We figured were more useful as property than actual people.

And, of course, if there's a shitstorm there's a Trump stepping in (and stirring up) the shit:

I'm not going to even bother making an argument about this. The nonsensical notion of naming places where American soldiers live and train for people who fought against and killed American soldiers would be so far beyond ridiculously stupid that it would create an entire dimension of "ridiculously stupid".

These names are a living monument to the racism that has poisoned the nation for so long that they simply need to be cornered as quickly as possible and beaten to death with the dispatch you'd club a cannibal plague rat.

Plus there's a whole bunch of GIs who have already made the argument and more eloquently than I ever could.

So, nope, my point here today is just to recall that not only were these sonsofbitches traitors, not only were they murderous traitors, not only were they murderous traitors for one of the worst possible fucking causes in human history but that, as officers and commanders of traitorous troops they were massive fucking losers, and that there was no bigger loser in the bunch than Braxton Fucking Bragg.

Let me give you a quick taste (and a nasty flavor it is) of the man, from his Wikipedia article:

"In June 1862, Bragg was elevated to command the Army of Mississippi (later known as the Army of Tennessee). He and Edmund Kirby Smith attempted an invasion of Kentucky in 1862, but Bragg retreated following the inconclusive Battle of Perryville in October.

In December, he fought another inconclusive battle at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the Battle of Stones River, against the Army of the Cumberland under Major General William Rosecrans. After months without significant fighting, Bragg was outmaneuvered by Rosecrans in the Tullahoma Campaign in June 1863, causing him to surrender Middle Tennessee to the Union. Bragg retreated to Chattanooga but evacuated it in September as Rosecrans' troops entered Georgia.

Later that month, with the assistance of Confederate forces from the Eastern Theater under James Longstreet, Bragg was able to defeat Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga, the bloodiest battle in the Western Theater, and the only major Confederate victory therein. Bragg forced Rosecrans back to Tennessee, but was criticized for not mounting an effective pursuit. In November, Bragg's army was routed by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Battles for Chattanooga and pushed back to Georgia. Confederate President Jefferson Davis subsequently relieved Bragg of command, recalling him to Richmond to serve as his chief military advisor. Bragg briefly returned to the field as a corps commander near the end of the war during the Campaign of the Carolinas.

Bragg is generally considered among the worst generals of the Civil War. Most of the battles in which he engaged ended in defeats. Bragg was extremely unpopular with both the men and the officers of his command, who criticized him for numerous perceived faults, including poor battlefield strategy, a quick temper, and overzealous discipline. Bragg has a generally poor reputation with historians, while some point towards the failures of Bragg's subordinates, especially Leonidas Polk, a close ally of Davis and known enemy of Bragg, as more significant factors in the many Confederate defeats at which Bragg commanded. The losses which Bragg suffered are cited as principal factors in the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy."

So, in the course of about two years, this idiot:

1. Tried to invade Kentucky, couldn't whip Don Carlos Buell (who was a pretty conclusive nitwit himself), and ran away like a whipped dog,
2. Couldn't beat fucking Bill Rosecrans, who as a commander couldn't beat a carpet if you spotted him the bat and the carpet,
3. Then got outmaneuvered by Rosecrans, which is like winning some sort of Nobel Prize for "crap generaling",
4. Finally whipped Rosecrans in a bloody brawl but needed Longstreet, one of the best rebel officers to do it,
5. And when the U.S. finally 86ed Rosecrans and replaced him with a competent commander Bragg managed to get his ass comprehensively whipped despite fighting defensively in one of the strongest defensive positions ever held by an armed force in the history of combat (look up the "Battle of Missionary Ridge" sometime...).

Finally even Jeff Davis - not exactly a military genius - had enough of Bragg's incompetent ass and got him out of the chain of command.

This guy was a complete and utter military moron.

Taking his name off the Home of the Airborne wouldn't just be a recognition that We the People shouldn't "honor" people who betrayed our country for the notion that other people could and should be owned like a box of Cap'n Crunch.

It's be a recognition that this particular traitor was not just a traitor but a spectacularly incompetent one, at that.

Then rename the place for George Thomas, who said this:

"[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed.

This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people—was not exacted from them."

Now that would be a perfect, chef's kiss, sort way of correcting the history books. Fort George Thomas.

Do it.

Now.

VTDS-Day

One hundred and fifty years ago today the longest sustained episode of treason against the United States came to an end.

I'm gonna go all out here; I think it's high time to actually win that battle.

As an aside, my mother taught elementary school in Virginia in the nineteen fifties. It was just her luck that she - a native Floridian but a national traveler in a time when very few people moved from their birthplace and someone who really thought of herself as a Yankee from New York State - had to teach the War of the Rebellion to her sixth grade class. Her memory is that it was eight weeks of Southern leaders, Southern heroes, and Southern victories with a couple of days at the end where the unpleasant defeat and occupation were breezed through. She says she completely understood her students who were shocked to find out that their state had lost.

Now I'm not going to go all Brian Beutner on you and suggest that this day be designated a national holiday. That seems a trifle past-the-sell-by-date and unlikely to succeed given the current GOP tongue-bathing of the ideals of the old Confederacy and the Articles of Confederation theory of governance.

But.

I'm all in with him about the idea of renaming the goddamn military posts named after people who fought and killed American soldiers.

And there's a pantsload of 'em. Bobby Lee? Braxton Bragg? John Bell Hood? George Pickett? George Gordon? All those treasonous sonsofbitches have an Army post named after them.

The argument you'd probably hear is that "They were fighting for what they believed in!" to which I'd say; "The fuck. So were fucking Erich von fucking Manstein and Isoroku fucking Yamamoto and you aren't suggesting we name an Army post or a Navy base after them, are you?"

After which you'd probably hear "But they were great leaders!" To which I'd say "A. P. Fucking Hill."

Historical Note: A.P. Hill, one of Bobby Lee's sorriest corps commanders, was an overpromoted cockup who couldn't figure out how to work battlefield tactics if he had been handed a goddamn large-print field manual and a copy of his enemy's situation maps. He did well arriving to help prevent disaster at Antietam but screwed the pooch at Fredricksburg and at the first day at Gettysburg, again at Bristoe Station and again in the Wilderness. Later in the war he was usually too sick to command but still managed to step on his poncho from time to time. He also got the clap at West Point, which I'm not sure to credit him with as some sort of bizarre achievement or add to his long string of fuckups. He was such an ardent traitor that he committed the Civil War version of "suicide-by-cop" on the first day of April, 1865, riding into the Union lines so as to ensure a picket blew him away and thus ensuring that he couldn't screw up anything in the remaining nine days of war. Anyway, if anyone tells you that the Southern forts are named for "great leaders"...there he is.

So let's clean the slavery traitors out of the Army's house; let's rename Fort Bragg after the Rock of Chickamauga and Fort Gordon after Bill Sherman (since the one in Panama is now called Coco Quako or something...).

And why the hell don't we have an Army post named after George Marshall?

Anyway, Happy Victory over Treason In Defense of Slavery Day!