Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Trump have embarked on a project to honor the Confederacy. Hegseth plans to restore the Confederate statues that were removed from their pedestals, although some may have been melted down.

The latest? Hegseth is bringing back the grand portrait of General Robert E. Lee in his Confederate gray uniform to West Point; it was installed in 1972.

The funniest line in the article below is the statement by the Army’s communication director, who said: “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.” Considering Trump censorship of words and images at the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, and in all other federally-funded institutions, that statement is ridiculous.

Perhaps even funnier is the renaming of military bases for obscure soldiers who had the same last name as Confederate generals.

The New York Times reported:

The Pentagon is restoring a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, which includes a slave guiding the Confederate general’s horse in the background, to the West Point library three years after a congressionally mandated commission ordered it removed, officials said.

The 20-foot-tall painting, which hung at the United States Military Academy for 70 years, was taken down in response to a 2020 law that stripped the names of Confederate leaders from military bases.

That legislation also created a commission to come up with new base names. In 2022, the commission ordered West Point to take down all displays that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.” A few weeks later, the portrait of General Lee with his slave in the background was placed in storage.

It was not clear how West Point could return General Lee’s portrait to the library without violating the law, which emerged from the protests that followed George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police officers in 2020.

“At West Point, the United States Military Academy is prepared to restore historical names, artifacts, and assets to their original form and place,” said Rebecca Hodson, the Army’s communications director. “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”

Both President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been outspoken in their desire to restore Confederate names and monuments that were removed over the last five years. Mr. Hegseth recently called for returning a memorial to the Confederacy that was removed from Arlington National Cemetery at the recommendation of Congress. In a social media post this month, Mr. Hegseth said the Arlington statue “never should have been taken down by woke lemmings.”

Earlier this summer, Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth restored the names of Confederate generals to the Army’s bases, but with a twist seemingly designed to avoid running afoul of the 2020 law. Mr. Hegseth and his staff found obscure soldiers who served honorably and shared a last name with the Confederate generals.

Rather than simply reinstate the name of General Lee to an Army base in Virginia, the Pentagon honored Pvt. Fitz Lee, a Black soldier who fought in the Spanish-American War. In the case of Fort Bragg, named for Braxton Bragg, an incompetent Confederate general, Mr. Hegseth celebrated Pvt. Roland L. Bragg, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.

The naming commission’s initial order to remove General Lee’s portrait was complicated by the general’s long history with the Army and the academy. General Lee graduated near the top of his West Point class and served as the academy’s superintendent from 1852 to 1855. His name and likeness were all over the campus.

The commission decided that portraits of General Lee in his blue Army uniform should remain. But the divisive painting of General Lee in his Confederate gray uniform was hauled away. The commission also recommended that West Point’s Lee Barracks, Lee Road, Lee Gate, Lee Housing Area and Lee Area Child Development Center all be renamed.