Righting the wrong

If you remember hearing about an Army base known as Fort Hood down in Killeen, Texas, it's time to hit the "rename" button in your memory. It's been re-christened Fort Cavazos, in honor of Gen. Richard Edward Cavazos, America's first Hispanic American four-star general. 

At long last, the Pentagon is renaming their properties that used to honor Confederate leaders, and they will now honor people who did NOT fight against America. Seems only right.

But who was Cavazos? Back to the Korean War we go. 1st Lt. Richard Cavazos was a company commander who led his unit back to safety and away from enemy shelling in June, 1953. 

After the war, Cavazos was assigned to Fort Hood, continuing a career that saw the son of a Mexican-American cattle rancher become our first Hispanic four-star general.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, an advocacy group, nominated him to have his name enshrined in the fort previously named for John Bell Hood, a Confederate general who quit the U.S. Army to fight against it.

These Army bases in former Confederate states will have new honorable names: 

• Fort Lee in Virginia (now renamed for Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams, two Black military pioneers.)
• Fort Pickett, Virginia (now renamed for Col. Van T. Barfoot, a World War II Medal of Honor recipient.)
• Fort Rucker in Alabama (renamed for Michael J. Novosel Sr., a Vietnam Medal of Honor awardee.)

In Korea, Cavazos took over a regiment that had been shamed for running away from battle in an earlier engagement and turned them into a well-trained group. On June 14, 1953, they were sent to attack an entrenched Chinese position.

With the objective captured, and vital enemy equipment and personnel eliminated, Cavazos's troops were withdrawing, but he remained behind to search for missing men, and even though he was exposed to hostile fire, he persisted until he located five wounded men and got them to safety.

For this, Cavazos was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and Navy Cross — the Navy’s equivalent award, and won another Distinguished Cross as a battalion commander in Viet Nam.  

Cavazos died in 2017, and was remembered as a "soldier's soldier" by Gen. Gordon Sullivan, ex-Army chief of staff.  “He was courageous, and they knew it, and they knew he couldn’t ask them to do anything that he wouldn’t do with them.”

That's the sort of man we should be honoring!