The Greatest Enemy – Commentary by Steve Scroggins

It may sound cliche to say that the "Greatest Enemy is the enemy within." It does sound cliche, but in the case of Southern Heritage, it's very true.

There are so many examples. In the Georgia flag fight, we have the infamous Northwest renegades of the SCV who sold out their heritage for political brownie points. They defied the expressed decision of the Executive Committee for the Georgia Division and created signs, complete with SCV logo and the endorsement of certain Camps, which urged motorists to vote for the Perdue/Chamber flag in the March 2 referendum. The Georgia Division announced its decision to favor neither flag. That issue is still being hotly debated.

But the point is that betrayal from so-called "compatriots" and friends hurts more than an outright attack, no matter how outrageous, from a known enemy.

Too many people are willing to slink away in the face of malicious lies, rather than stand up for the truth. Too many people would give away our birthright rather than risk a confrontation or "offending" someone.

A prime example arrived in my E-mail Inbox tonight from a southern patriot in my SCV Camp. A little set up first, to prime you for his story.

Russ Huffman lives in Twiggs County and he's an active southern patriot. He has been very active locally to persuade the Twiggs County Commission to grant permission to move a Confederate momument to a place of honor on the courthouse grounds. That's a long story in itself and our Camp is helping Russ to pursue preservation and honor for the Twiggs County monument in Jeffersonville. More on this in a future column.

Another long story, is the story of a granite monument owned by our Camp. It had to be moved from its previous location and we've been actively seeking an appropriate location for it since last summer. Russ and his lovely wife know some folks in Twiggs County who are involved in restoring an old historic church.

Our SCV Camp began discussing the placement of our monument on the church grounds. In exchange, our Camp would help with restoration and raising funds to restore the church. Everyone was enthusiastic and things were looking peachy keen.

Then we received "the letter." A prominent member of the committee, in essence, let us know "between the lines" that he opposed any Confederate monument or Confederate flags on the church property.

We certainly did NOT want our monument at ANY location where it's not welcome.

This evening, there was a "town meeting" scheduled in Twiggs County, and Russ and his wife, being active citizens, were there.

The subject was the restoration of Old Richland Baptist Church. Here's where my friend's email picks up...

Compatriots, Something happened tonight that I thought y'all would be interested in. The wife and I went to a meeting of the Old Richland Church Restoration League. It was at the Twiggs County Courthouse and it was billed as a "town meeting." Citizens were there to discuss the restoration of the old church which was built in the 1840's. The church played a significant role in the WBTS. Ladies of the church sewed the flag that was carried into battle by the Twiggs Volunteers and they made up first aid kits for the soldiers. This is attested to on a historical marker outside the church. Anyway, some British-sounding woman was invited to speak on how to raise funds to restore the church(which is est. at $100,000.00). She asked the group to give her possible uses of the building after the restoration was complete claiming that foundations, etc., want to know what the building will be used for before they commit money. One lady mentioned having meetings such as the DAR and the UDC. This lady at the front was writing these ideas on a big pad with a magic marker. When she wrote DAR she hesitated and said something like "UDC, Oh maybe I better not write that one down..." and then kind of snickered and went on to the next item. It was obvious from her tone of voice and her demeanor that the UDC was not on her list of desirables. My wife and I stared at each other for a second, and I almost left the meeting at that point, but I stayed the course and finally got my two cents worth in and scolded the limey lady for not writing UDC. Then I proceeded to inform the attendees about the Confederate Heritage of the church and that I would like to see Living History events with reenactors, etc. The sole black man at this meeting came to me later and said he was into reenactments and had been to Gettysburg and Williamsburg among other places. Folks, the blacks are not our problem when it comes to Confederate Heritage, it's the mealy-mouthed, left-wing, kiss-@ss whites that have abandoned their own heritage and jumped on the PC bandwagon. To end on a good note, my Living History/reenactment suggestion got a heap of votes from the citizenry when we got to pick our favorite 5 uses of the church, and quite a few folks came up after the meeting and said they were glad I brought up the subject. This is what amazes me. We are talking about a historic building that has a state historical marker summarizing its Confederate heritage and no one has the nerve to mention that fact when discussing future uses of the property. My blood pressure is still off the chart. Russ "Muley" Huffman

Russ hits the bullseye on this one, folks. A room full of people and I suspect that Confederate heritage would not have been discussed if my friend had not been there. I'm thankful that he was there.

It's a building that definitely worthy of preservation....precisely BECAUSE of its history! Yet, people were going to dance around that history and pretend that the historical marker is not there, to pretend it's first twenty-five years of history are not important enough to remember.

I recognize that the fund-raiser lady was doing what comes natural...and the being "PC" is probably the easiest way to raise money from foundations. A big part of our problem is that the foundations are infested with spineless folks would rather compromise principle and truth than risk a confrontation with a demagogue who might call them names.

I realize that I'm preaching to the choir for the most part, because the audience for this website is mostly people already convinced that our heritage is worthy of our efforts to preserve, protect and defend.

The morale of the story is clear. It's fear, apathy and laziness that hurts our heritage most. There will always be a few radical people such as the Tyrone Brooks and the Jesse Jacksons...but those people are powerless unless others cave in to their demagoguery.

I don't have a solution...except leading by example. More of us have to stand up and defend the truth to give others the courage to do the same. We need more people actively working with us to defend, preserve and RESTORE Southern Heritage.

GHC has plans in the works to begin building a network of political activists. More on that coming to this site soon.

And more on the Twiggs County monument coming soon, too. Please pass the word to anyone in the area (especially Twiggs County residents!) to contact Russ Huffman and help us get that monument restored and moved to an appropriate place of honor.

Remember...Apathy and Ignorance are the Greatest Enemy.

Steve Scroggins is Adjutant of the Lt. James T. Woodward Camp 1399, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in Warner Robins, GA and a frequent GHC contributor of parody and political cartoons and graphics.