SAVE THE SOUTH'S DEFENDERS MEMORIAL MONUMENT

Monument should not be linked to politics

     THERE ARE some things that should be off-limits to politics, like historic monuments honoring local war dead.

     One of those caught up in a political dispute is Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana’s 105-year-old courthouse monument which honors war dead – who by chance wore gray uniforms in this nation’s most tragic war.

      The South’s Defenders Memorial Monument is being caught up in a nationwide rampage of destruction by radical left-wing mobs intimidated local officials, and in some states, the governors.

       This is the third time spiteful people and groups have tried to get it removed and destroyed. They have convinced Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter, a Republican, to support their campaign, although he claims he doesn’t want it destroyed. Maybe so, but he is still supporting their malicious effort to destroy its meaning and make it something shameful and that those fallen soldiers were traitors. That is just as bad or worse than physically destroying this honorable war memorial.

        All historical documents associated with the monument show, it was dedicated in 1915—the 50^th anniversary year of the nation’s bloodiest conflict in American history—the War Between the States. It was a tribute to Calcasieu Parish war dead and the common soldier, not the Confederate government. Both Union and Confederate veterans took part in the dedication ceremony, and the Union soldiers were thanked by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the group that raised the money for it, for the emancipation of the nation.

        The theme of the dedication was national reconciliation, peace, and unity. There is no racist intention at all in this beautiful monument. It consists of a bronze statue of a young color bearer stepping forward. It stands on a tall marble column and the magnificent seven-tiered marble base is flanked on either side by marble cannonballs. It is an exquisite work of art and sculpture that is an important element of the manicured 1912 Calcasieu Parish Courthouse lawn. To tear that down and possibly destroy it, under such false and shameful circumstances, would be a disgrace to all Southwest Louisiana. Is that the way Louisianians treat its honored war dead?

        Like other monuments dedicated all across this country, it was part of the nation’s healing process. That is why the local monument is historically significant in its own right. Clearly, there was no ill-will or political intent of any kind in the raising of this monument.

        Most citizens of goodwill, black and white, Northerner and Southerner, alike, know the difference between a proper symbol of our history and an improper one.

        To tear down, and possibly destroy, this historic war memorial is to say the Calcasieu men who died in that war did not live, did not suffer, and did not leave widows, orphans and thousands of descendants that feel the agonizing loss that only family members can understand.

         The South’s Defenders Memorial Monument does not represent a nation, a cause, or even a war. It only symbolizes our own tragic loss in the most difficult part of our history. And the healing of a nation once divided by war.

          It pays tribute to the common soldier, who had very little choice in the matter, in much the same way the Vietnam Veterans Memorial honors the fallen of another unpopular war.

          If this community starts tearing down, or neglecting, historic monuments every time the political winds change, no monuments and no heroes will be safe in the future.

          Let’s put politics aside and leave the magnificent The South’s Defenders Memorial Monument standing proudly on the most historically significant landscape at the 1912 Calcasieu Parish Courthouse.

          Please contact your Calcasieu Parish Police Juror and tell him to not move The South’s Defenders Memorial Monument https://www.calcasieuparish.gov/government/police-jury/police-jurors.