Dealing with the important matters of war and peace, I recall from my youth hearing wise men and women say: “Give the American people the facts and they will invariably make the right decisions.”

Entering and during World War II we were not always given facts. Facts tend to support the conclusion that the U. S. Government invited the attack on Pearl Harbor. Was the sacrifice at Pearl Harbor necessary to snap Americans out of their complacency and isolationism and help stop the Nazi takeover of Europe? A rational argument can be made that the attack was invited and the desired result was achieved. Facts are facts and conclusions are mostly opinion.

The “Tonkin Gulf Resolution” used by President Lyndon Johnson to get a Congressional blank check to pursue the Vietnam war was based on events that never happened. The same Congress that was duped by Johnson was duped by Communist-influenced individuals in government, media and academia into betraying American troops who served in Vietnam and abandoning the people of Southeast Asia to Communist tyranny.

The current administration in Washington has little credibility with many Americans. They tend to routinely say one thing and do the opposite. The President frequently misstates history, either intentionally or through a lack of factual knowledge.   Some Americans accept what elected officials say at face value because they have no factual basis for sound judgment. Ignorance of important facts leaves citizens vulnerable to manipulation by others who may not have their best interest at heart.

No war in which America has been engaged is surrounded by more myths than the so-called American “Civil War.” A successful argument may be made using historical facts that it was not a “civil war.” It was a war between two sovereign nations with constitutions and elected representatives. The Confederate States seceded from the union they formed according to the provisions of the Declaration of Independence and formed an independent government. They were forced back into the union by a tyrannical military occupation at the point of a bayonet.

In recent years a few brave historians have begun putting facts back into the history of the darkest days in American History. At the top of the list is a decorated hero of the Vietnam War who sharpened his interest in factual history while recuperating from combat wounds suffered in Southeast Asia.

Leonard M. “Mike” Scruggs, an award winning Historian, familiar to readers of The Times Examiner, sold 40,000 copies of an abridged version of his book titled, The Un-Civil War. An expanded 360-page paperback version titled, The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths has just come off the press in time for the 150 year Sesquicentennial Commemoration of the war.

The Un-Civil War earned Scruggs the prestigious D. T. Smithwick Award for Excellence by the North Carolina Society of Historians. The Heritage Preservation Foundation following their review stated: “This is history rescued from decades of darkness and brought back to life…it is history at its very best…you won’t want to put it down.”

Mike Scruggs will be the guest speaker at the June 23 meeting of the 16th Regiment, Sons of Confederate Veterans at the Phoenix Inn in Greenville. Mike will be autographing copies of his new book that sells for $22.95.

Since an overflow crowd is expected, any reader who is not a member of the SCV may call a member of the SCV or The Times Examiner to be a guest at the event.

Some 105 years ago, General Stephen Dill Lee charged the Sons of Confederate Veterans to: “Remember, it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations.”

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