{"id":77610,"date":"2025-08-08T18:38:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2025\/08\/08\/restoring-confederate-memorial-removed-from-arlington-could-cost-10m\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:09:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:09:24","slug":"restoring-confederate-memorial-removed-from-arlington-could-cost-10m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/veterans\/military-history\/2025\/08\/08\/restoring-confederate-memorial-removed-from-arlington-could-cost-10m\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoring Confederate memorial removed from Arlington could cost $10M"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Restoring a memorial to the Confederacy<\/a> that was removed from Arlington National Cemetery at the recommendation of Congress will cost roughly $10 million total, a U.S. Army official said \u2014 the latest development in a Trump administration effort to combat what it calls \u201cerasing American history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once back in the cemetery, the monument \u2014 described a few years ago as \u201cproblematic from top to bottom\u201d \u2014 will also feature panels nearby that will offer context about its history, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity about a project still in progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon expects it to take about two years to restore the monument to its original site, the official told The Associated Press. The base that it sat on needs to be replaced and the monument itself will be refurbished as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced<\/a> the Pentagon would reinstall the memorial at Arlington \u2014 an expanse just outside Washington that once contained the land of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee \u2014 less than two years after it was removed on the recommendation of an independent commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On social media Tuesday, Hegseth said the Arlington statue \u201cnever should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don\u2019t believe in erasing American history \u2014 we honor it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was erected more than a century ago<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Confederate monument, erected in 1914, was the creation of sculptor and Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel. It features a classical female figure, crowned with olive leaves, representing the American South, alongside sanitized depictions of slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, a congressionally mandated commission recommended that the memorial, along with scores of other military assets that bore Confederate references, be either removed or renamed. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, the vice chair of the commission, said that the group found that Ezekiel\u2019s memorial was \u201cproblematic from top to bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arlington National Cemetery\u2019s page on the memorial noted that aside from the sanitized depictions of enslaved people, the statue featured a Latin phrase that equated the South\u2019s secession to a noble \u201clost cause.\u201d That\u2019s a false interpretation of the Civil War that glorifies the conflict as a struggle over the power of the federal government and not the institution of slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\t