Retired US Army Brigadier General Ty Seidule recently posted an op-ed, “Hegseth subverts Congress by ordering racist Confederate monument’s return to Arlington, (August 10, 2025) on The Hill’s website about the impending reunification of the Arlington Reconciliation Monument to its proper place in Arlington National Cemetery.
Though General Seidule has had a remarkable military career and even holds a PhD in History, his column is riddled with misperceptions and intolerant opinions that reflect exactly why Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to clear out the woke military leaders, although the General has already retired.
He also seems proud that he was one of four individuals appointed by former racist Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to the review group on this particular monument and the renaming of military bases, but more on that later.
First, the General proclaims that the monument’s actual name is “The Arlington Confederate Monument,” and he bitterly complains that in Secretary Hegseth’s press release, he fails to mention the actual monument’s name.
So what?
Well, as a woke military leader and an elite academic historian to boot, the General believes that the name alone should condemn this monument to the dustbins of history.
Not so quick.
History is nothing if it is not accurate.
Certainly, the American Civil War is a stain on our nation’shistory since Americans fought Americans, and more lives were lost in that war than in any war before or since.
Former Union soldier and US President William McKinley first proposed, only a few days after the Spanish-American War, during his Peace Jubilee Tour on December 14, 1898, in Atlanta,that Confederate soldiers needed their gravestones to be “tended to” because the Confederates were “a tribute to American valor.”
He went on eloquently, “in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers…Sectional feelings no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag again waves over us in peace with new glories.”
US Senator Joseph Roswell Hawley (R-CT), a former Governor of Connecticut and Brevet Major General of volunteers in the US Army, then introduced a bill in the 1900 session of Congress which authorized $2,500 for a plan to reinter Confederate soldiers, and President McKinley signed that legislation on June 6, 1900.
General Seidule goes on to say, “I study Confederate commemoration” and that it is a cruel and racist monument located on sacred ground, which makes its reappearance “even more offensive.”
Fortunately, this is just one man’s opinion, and he is way out of step with some great past Presidents.
American Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson all played key roles in the celebration of Confederate Memorial Day (President Barack Obama was one of the very few Presidents to break that tradition and not go to Arlington) and the erection of the monument, which took place on June 14, 1914.
Then General Seidule goes on to criticize the artistic creativity of American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, who created the monument and is buried at its base.
An art critic he is not.
Then the General goes on to indicate that he was the Vice Chair of the Naming Commission established by Congress, and he further claims that the members were not “woke lemmings” (I haven’t accused him of that yet) by virtue that there were three Republicans, one Democrat, and four retired flag officers.
He doth protest too much.
More than anyone, the General should realize that just because there was political diversity does not ensure ideologicaldiversity.
Trust me, Secretary Austin took no chances in naming anyone who did not believe in the cultural war that disgraced President Joe Biden and Austin were beholden to.
Interestingly, and General, please take note for your history course, which is why we have national elections every four years.
America soundly rejected your perverted, elitist, woke, arrogant, narrow-minded ideology, and that is why President Donald Trump is undoing, as quickly as he can, everything that y’all (that is Southern, for you all) did to make Americans ashamed of our founding and our history.
The General also suggests that “Hegseth and neo-Confederates groups argue that the [Naming] Commission sought to ‘erase history.’ Not quite. Classes still study the Civil War…Removing the names of bases named after confederate (sic) generals or racist monuments changed who and how we commemorate, our remit from Congress, not history.”
General, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Your self-righteousness is blatantly showing.
Most Confederate Generals were West Point graduates (sadly, I see that you taught there, ugh) or Annapolis grads, so to dispose of your academy alumni so easily proves that you are a reactionary with a lack of principles for your fellow man.
Every soldier in the Civil War deserves to be honored and commemorated, not just those that you and your Commission decided are worthy.
The General also claims that although the monument was meant for honor and reconciliation that Hegseth’s “gets his history grossly wrong” because the “Reunion had already occurred in 1868.”
General, you need to go back to school and relearn your history, which is why I am so shocked that you still teach history.
I bet you teach 1619.
While everyone knows that the Reunion happened and that Reconstruction took place, that does not nearly equate toreconciliation, which is why four US Presidents participated and supported the placing of the monument at Arlington National Cemetery, land that was confiscated by the US government, ironically from General Robert E. Lee’s family (though they did compensate his family years later after litigation).
The General goes on to pontificate about relitigating the Civil War.
He states that Secretary Hegseth is “telling us that the values of 1914, white supremacy, and Jim Crow are this country’s – and the Army’s – values. This monument has everything to do with racism and nothing to do with reconciliation. Suggesting otherwise is a perversion of U. S. history and an insult to everyone buried in Arlington Cemetery.”
And that is exactly what the Far Left, Hollywood, and academic elites want you to believe.
The only insult, General, is that you are still teaching history, thankfully, not in Florida, because our Governor and our legislature have outlawed this kind of woke indoctrination that you so pitifully espouse.
You probably support public tax dollars for military transgender operations.
I bet you still support DEI.
And ESG.
Christian’s, Jews, most people of faith, conservatives, and people who love our country believe in reconciliation.
We understand who won the Civil War.
Isn’t that enough for you and your ilk?
Apparently not.
Barney Bishop III is a frequent columnist at Florida Daily and a former CEO of Associated Industries of Florida, known since 1920 as “The Voice of Florida Business.” He is also a former executive director of the Florida Democratic Party. Currently, he is the CEO of Barney Bishop Consulting LLC, a strategic public affairs firm based in Tallahassee. He can be reached at Barney@BarneyBishop.com
