A Republican senator expressed his support for the effort to remove the names of Confederate leaders from military bases.
“I do, actually,” Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford told ABC’s This Week on Sunday when asked whether it is time to stop associating bases with Confederate figures.
“There are lots of great leaders, military leaders, that are around the country, that are modern leaders, that we can continue to be able to honor and continue to be able to put names forward,” he said, adding that service members should be able to look up to the people whom bases are named after as role models.
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday to require the Pentagon to strip military bases of Confederate names and remove monuments or symbols of the Confederacy within three years.
President Trump, however, has come out in opposition of removing any of the names.
There are 10 Army bases across the South named after Confederate officers: Camp Beauregard and Fort Polk in Louisiana; Fort Bragg in North Carolina; Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee, and Fort Pickett in Virginia; Fort Hood in Texas; Fort Rucker in Alabama; and Fort Gordon and Fort Benning in Georgia.
