Confederate veterans are our veterans too

Contrary to the impression you would get from the Rev. Drew Martin (“Stars and bars don’t belong in Columbia’s Veterans Day parade,” Dec. 14), it makes perfect sense to honor Confederate veterans on Veterans Day.

Laws passed by Congress required the federal government to provide headstones, markers and burial receptacles for Confederate veterans, who were entitled to be buried in any national cemetery.

As President William McKinley put it in calling for the equal recognition of Confederate veterans: “Every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate Civil War is a tribute to American valor. And while, when those graves were made, we differed widely about the future of this government, those differences were long ago settled by the arbitrament of arms; and the time has now come, in the evolution of sentiment and feeling under the providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers.”

Perhaps most troubling was Rev. Martin’s claim that, “Being a patriotic American and being proud of the Confederacy are mutually exclusive.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Why does it have to be one or the other? We can love our country and still honor and remember those who gave the last full measure of devotion on our own soil.

As in the Indian wars, we don’t necessarily honor the cause; we honor the man in uniform. God bless all of our veterans.