Memorials to war dead a separate issue from statues

Regarding removing Confederate monuments: This seems to be a topic that has been well vetted in southern legislatures over the past several years, and I agree with their removal from public government buildings, where we all have to go from time to time. However, people with private property do have the right to have monuments to whomever they like. If you don’t like it, don’t go there. To say a Seattle monument to Confederate soldiers in a private cemetery is a symbol of bigotry and hate is misleading. One should honor the dead. They are our history and they are gone. We are all eventually buried, from the most loved to the most despicable, usually in the same graveyard.

To say any monument to dead soldiers should be removed because what they died for was wrong, is to say any monument to any dead soldier should be removed, if you did not agree with their cause. And how many monuments might this be? Perhaps millions.

More recent history includes those who died fighting in Work War II. Would it be right to say any monument to dead German soldiers should be removed? Most Germans were not even Nazis. Do we deny their loved ones the right to honor their dead? I say let the dead rest in peace. This is the guidance of most major religions, which I agree with.

Carolyn Henri

Everett

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