Letters

Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general and a traitor to our country. He also was a loser on many levels. Bragg graduated from West Point, where he swore an oath to protect the Constitution. However, that did not prevent him from taking up arms against the country he had sworn to protect.

Bragg served as a general in the Confederate Army, where he earned a reputation as perhaps the worst general to serve under Robert E. Lee. He was a tactical incompetent, and his officers and men despised him. His army was routed by Grant’s army in the Battle of Chattanooga, after which he was relieved of command.

And yet this man, who fought for the right to buy and sell other human beings, was honored when the U.S. military named an important base after him: North Carolina’s Fort Bragg.

The United States has over 3,500 Medal of Honor winners. With few exceptions, any one of those brave men and women is more deserving of having a base named after them than General Bragg.

This includes Riverhead’s Garfield Langhorne, who was posthumously awarded the Medal Of Honor after he saved the lives of several wounded comrades by diving onto a live grenade during the Vietnam War.

The U.S. military is now open to changing the names of bases that honor Confederate traitors. Our congressman, Lee Zeldin, should seize this opportunity and work to honor Garfield Langhorne, who is truly more deserving than General Bragg and his ilk.

It is time we honor real American heroes.

P.S. Congressman Zeldin once told me that he reads my letters to the editor. If he reads this one, I hope that he responds in these pages to my suggestion.

John Neely

Westhampton Beach