If the chairman of the Joint Chiefs can see it…

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley criticized Confederate symbols before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, and called the Civil War an “act of treason.”

Milley said that minority service members — which he noted make up 43% of the U.S. military — may feel uncomfortable that Army bases are named for Confederate generals who “fought for an institution of slavery that may have enslaved one of their ancestors.”

“For those young soldiers that go on to a base of Fort Hood, Fort Bragg, whatever, named after a Confederate general, they can be reminded that that general fought for an institution of slavery.”

“I had a staff sergeant when I was a young officer who actually told me that at Fort Bragg. He said he went to work every day on a base that represented a guy who enslaved his grandparents.”

And there’s no compelling reason to go on doing that, is there. We’re allowed to change the names of things. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of remarkable people bases could be named for.

“The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason at the time against the union, against the stars and stripes, against the U.S. Constitution, and those officers turned their back on their oath.”

But they got bases named after them, and former slaves got lynched.