Confederates are U.S. veterans

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Editor,

For all the people speaking out about the Confederate flags in the Eureka Springs cemetery, let me school you with a fact – it’s obvious you don’t know or understand.

All Confederate soldiers, sailors and marines who fought in the U.S. Civil War were made U.S veterans by an Act of Congress in 1957, U.S. Public Law 85-425, Sec. 410, approved 23 May 1958.

This made all Confederate Army, Navy and Marine veterans equal to U.S. Veterans. Additionally, under U.S. Public Law 810, approved by the 17th Congress on 26 Feb 1929, the War Department was directed to erect headstones and recognize Confederate gravesites as U.S. War gravesites, flags and all.

Just for the record, the last Confederate veteran died in 1958, so in essence, when you remove a Confederate flag from a headstone, you are in fact removing it from the headstone of a U.S. veteran. Just sayin’.

Mike Smith

2 COMMENTS

  1. Well, Mike, it sounds like we need to put the US Flag on the graves of these U.S. Veterans….not the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag is not a U.S. flag.

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