Even Germans have war memorials

...because they want to remember the sacrifices of their young men. There's no glorifying the deeds of the government, but there are prayers and remembrances. Some in the US mock the French for "always surrendering," so it should logically follow that those who feel that way wouldn't mind when people honor men who defend their homes:

Legislator wants Rebels on memorial

BATON ROUGE -- Campus memorials honoring Louisiana State University students killed in wars should include the names of soldiers who fought and died for the Confederacy, a northern Louisiana lawmaker said Thursday.

Sen. Robert Barham, R-Oak Ridge, said the names of 18 "brave young Southern soldiers (who) made the ultimate sacrifice for their cause" should be added to a plaque on the school's Memorial Tower or the War Memorial on the Baton Rouge campus.

In a letter to the LSU Board of Supervisors, the board that sets policy for all of the LSU campuses, Barham asks that the 18 men who left the military academy that was LSU's forerunner to join the Confederate army be honored with their names engraved on a plaque in the tower or the War Memorial Plaza front of the tower. The military academy closed its doors at the start of the Civil War.

I'll say this for Sen. Barnham, he's an equal-opportunity bomb-thrower, not simply a "south-never-dies" type:

Barham recently created a small furor when he passed a nonbinding Senate resolution calling on the board to name a building on the campus after Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, the founding president of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, LSU's precursor at Pineville.

Sherman? Sherman? Talk about arouse the ire of the Confederate forces. Still, many Confederate officers are still honored in the north for their service to the Union prior to the war, so vice-versa should be acceptable.

But that's a general, and you can argue that Sherman had more control over his actions. These 18 men killed while fighting for the Confederacy were defending their homes. That's honorable behavior.

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