Editor’s note: Last week, we asked readers to offer their opinions on this topic. A proposed future topic (on the lighter side) that you can weigh in on for a future column: What’s your go-to hiking trail in the Cheyenne Mountain area? Send submissions to Editor Michelle Karas at michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. Submissions may be edited.

Villainy was on both sides in Civil War

I have spoken to some of our veterans who served in Iraq. Some don’t understand that when, as cited in the HistoryNet article “In America’s Civil War: John Mosby and George Custer Clash in the Shenandoah Valley” (bit.ly/3ePSNjJ), “Grant quickly responded to this stinging defeat by ordering Sheridan to send troops ‘through Loudoun County, to destroy and carry off the crops, animals, Negroes, and all men under fifty years of age capable of bearing arms. In this way, you will get many of Mosby’s men.’ He also ordered Sheridan to hunt down the families of Mosby’s men. ‘I think they should be taken and kept at Fort McHenry, or some other secure place, as hostages for the good conduct of Mosby’s men.’ Grant then ominously added ‘When any of Mosby’s men are caught, hang them without trial.’”

Grant was a war criminal. It is a lynching to hang someone without a trial.

I plan to present these comments at the next Academy District 20 Board of Education meeting.

After the American Civil War, no one in the Union Army was prosecuted for killing so many Confederate prisoners with the inhumane conditions of their prison camp during the American Civil War.

See: Confederate Mound at Oak Woods Cemetery Chicago, Illinois (bit.ly/3ybdr5w).

Richard R. Allen, Colorado Springs

Editor’s note: Last week, we asked readers to offer their opinions on the topic of use of Confederate flags in the classroom. We received no responses from Tribune readers. What are some topics you’d like to debate or discuss in this space?

A proposed future topic (on the lighter side) that you can weigh in on for a future column: What’s your go-to hiking trail in the Tri-Lake area? Send submissions to Editor Michelle Karas at michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. Submissions may be edited.

Editor’s note: Last week, we asked readers to offer their opinions on this topic. A proposed future topic (on the lighter side) that you can weigh in on for a future column: What’s your go-to hiking trail in the North Springs area? Send submissions to Editor Michelle Karas at michelle.karas@pikespeaknewspapers.com. Submissions may be edited.

We need to teach history, not erase it

I’m so sick of the nonsense that has now been identified as “cancel culture.” After reading “What’s Your Take On … Confederate flags in the classroom?” (May 12), I found myself very annoyed with another yet another liberal who thinks that the answer to former United States problems and/or sins is to remove any symbol of them from our current society so someone won’t be offended. Is that how we’re to treat things that offend us; remove them?

I’m offended by Hailey Schramm’s response to Confederate flags hanging in a classroom. Can we have her removed as a substitute teacher? The underlying premise with this kind of thinking ultimately is revisionist history. Eliminate any evidence of bad decisions a certain group of people made a few hundred years ago then no one will know. Whatever. “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Is Schramm an educator or an activist? What’s her role as a substitute teacher? If it’s an activist then I say boot her out! She chose the wrong profession!

Does she want these kids growing up without understanding our history and what we did to rectify the struggles we had as a new nation? Does she know that the United States and Great Britain eliminated slavery? We don’t exalt our past, but also do not ignore and hide what happened. We learn and grow stronger; maintaining our resolve to be a free people because of it.

She didn’t like the answers she received from the staff at school so she goes to a liberal organization (Change.org) to petition the school district to remove the flags. Now she’s utilizing an activist organization to implement revisionist history in the classroom. She’s not playing the role of an educator and helping TEACH about our history. She’s wants to take any evidence away from the students and hide it, is if it never happened. I think the thought was, “… especially Black students – feel a symbol of white supremacy and hatred hanging in their classroom.” What does she think is going to happen? Are those Black students in danger of being enslaved again by us white guys? Are they going to get the opportunity to see what our history was and learn from it? OR, is she trying to blind the minds of Black students so they don’t see the past and the successes the United States had in overcoming slavery in defeating the Confederate uprising against the United States? Those flags were not in that classroom as a badge of honor or as a symbol of oppression over people with Black skin! They were there to represent the flag of the group of states that tried to secede from the Union.

“The flag represents slavery, so it should be taken down and burned in all states,” was the comment from someone signing the petition. I wonder if Schramm and this signee knows that, back during the slave trade, the U.S. exported only 4% of the slaves coming out of Africa? Great Britain enslaved a similar percentage. I wonder if any of these people know that the biggest perpetrators of slavery out of Africa were … other Africans! Tribal wars went on all the time back then.

Guess what happened to the losers? They were sold to the white guys who came over with ships to haul them away; thus, eliminating their enemy. Do either of these people know who exported the most Africans out of Africa? Islam at 90% or more. I wonder if these people are willing to start a petition to ban and burn the Generous Qur’an for its call to enslave and kill any who oppose them? (Surah 2:221, 3:106-107, 4:25, 8:67 for example – there are many more.)

No, the call isn’t to knock down statues, start riots and pull down the Confederate flag. That’s communism bubbling up in our society. No, the call is to educate and demonstrate our successes as a nation. We overcame slavery and that should never be ignored.

Schramm needs to go back to school and learn the truth before trying to educate our students.

Brooks DeMio, Colorado Springs