It seems like just yesterday that workers all over (then) Fort Gordon were busy taking down road signage and replacing them with the installation’s new moniker of Fort Eisenhower.
We are hoping that the military brass had the forethought to put the old signage in a warehouse somewhere and save the taxpayers some money now that the Trump administration has decided to restore the name of Gordon back on the fort.
This reversal of the naming policy should not have taken anyone by surprise, as Trump made the issue part of his campaign. However, with military hot spots threatening to erupt around the world, we would have hoped the naming of military bases would be lower on the priorities list.
We must also not forget that while Augustan’s paid little attention to the original name change because Eisenhower remains a revered figure in the Garden City and, frankly, while hardly anyone remembered who Gen. John Brown Gordon was, that was not the attitude in other places around the country.
For a time, people on both sides of the naming issue allowed emotions to cloud their common sense, forcing them to draw lines in the sand over the preservation of history and how history is presented to the younger generations. It became a battle of which there was never going to be a winner.
It would be sad if the country reverted back to 2020 when people were tearing down statues and monuments because their mere presence offended them. Even statues memorializing the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, were not safe from being vandalized or torn down.
This is not to mention the enormous cost that will be involved if successive administrations go tit-for-tat every four years over something as benign as a name.
We agree with Mayor Garnett Johnson, who issued a statement praising the installation’s new namesake, Master Sgt. Gary I. Gordon as a true American hero; he was a man worthy of praise.
Let’s hope that the matter is now laid to rest and once the new/old signage is in place, we can let our military get back to its core mission of keeping our country safe.
