Quotes from America’s Forbidden Historical Narrative
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Freedom without Truth Is an Impostor
William Wallace, Aberdeen, Scotland
ot long ago, I ran across a quote attributed to Scottish martyr and hero William Wallace, depicted by Mel Gibson in the 1995 movie, Braveheart. Wallace warned against the consequences of crushing the cultural heritage, symbols, and traditions of conquered peoples.
“Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history or denies them their symbols, has sown the seeds of their own destruction.”—William Wallace, circa 1297-1305
Born in 1270, Wallace was a Scottish Knight who became one of the main leaders of the First Scottish War of Independence (1296-1328). Scotland had been independent until 1296, when England’s Edward I, tried to force the Scots to make him Lord Paramount of Scotland. Along with Andrew Moray, Wallace defeated an English army of King Edward I at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in September 1297 and was appointed Guardian of Scotland. In August 1305, Wallace was captured, sent to London, tried, and publicly executed for treason with barbaric cruelty.
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The Escalation Crisis in Ukraine
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Double-down Insanity or Sober Realism?
Remembering a JFK Speech
The United States and NATO are fighting a proxy war against the Russian Federation in Ukraine. Russia, however, is a very different country from the old Soviet Union and has not been dominated by Communist philosophy, government, or ambitions for over 30 years. Yet the Western coalition of NATO and European Union governments and their national media have been telling the public since February 2022 that this war is about democracy, freedom, and guaranteeing Ukrainian independence, and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, was “unprovoked” aggression. That narrative continues to be upheld by many Western political leaders. but it is shallow and far short of the complete truth. It is largely propaganda. A huge part of this propaganda has been the ruthless, dishonest, and inflammatory demonizing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it has also created an Orwellian “Russo-phobic” canon of misinformation about Russia and the Russian people.
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A Southern Military Legacy
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Four Generations of Patriotic Gallantry
2nd Lt. Creswell Garlington, Jr, DSC, died of wounds, 2 September 1944.
Albert Creswell Garlington was born in Oglethorpe County Georgia in 1822. He was the son of Christopher Garlington and Eliza Aycock Garlington. Garlington graduated from the University of Georgia in 1842 with highest honors and moved to South Carolina where he became a lawyer in 1844. He married Sally Lark Moon in 1846 and moved to her hometown of Newberry in 1848. Garlington served two terms in the South Carolina General Assembly in 1850-1854 and ran for U.S Congress in 1854 but was defeated by Preston Brooks.
The mention of Preston Brooks demands a parenthetical explanation of historical importance. Brooks was the incumbent Congressman, who had been elected in 1852 and served until his untimely death from a viral respiratory infection on January 27, 1857. On May 20, 1856, U.S. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts made a speech on the Senate Floor, entitled, “Bleeding Kansas,” critical of Southern slavery supporters. In this speech, he particularly mocked, insulted, and impugned the character of South Carolina’s gifted, beloved, but ailing Senator, Andrew Pickens Butler (1796-1857) and also managed to criticize Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas. Butler and Douglas were co-sponsors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Sumner had a reputation for self-righteous arrogance During the course of the speech, Senator Douglas turned to a colleague and said, “This damn fool is going to get himself shot by some other damn fool.” Congressman Brooks was a first cousin of Senator Butler and considered Sumner to have insulted the honor of his family.
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The Indian Wars and the Medal of Honor
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
An astonishing 421 Medals of Honor 1867-1898
Brigadier General Ernest A. Garlington, ca. 1907; Medal of Honor, 1890
American colonists and later the United States Army were engaged in frequent conflicts with Native American tribes from the very beginning of North American settlement. Over 1,000 skirmishes and battles occurred during the 25 years following the Civil War, from the Commanche War from 1867 to 1885 to the Pine Ridge Campaign in 1890 and 1891. The latter included the infamous Battle and Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota on December 29, 1890, involving the Lakota Sioux.
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South Carolina’s Conspicuous Record of Gallantry
- By Mike Scruggs
- Category: Mike Scruggs' Column
Joe Ronnie Hooper, US Army
Medal of Honor, Vietnam 1968
36 Medal of Honor Winners from 1861 to 2020
Several years ago, I was invited to give a presentation on my book on the Civil War—The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths, published in 2011—to a group of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Pickens, South Carolina. Pickens is a small town of about 3,400 population, but it is the county seat of Pickens County. Pickens County has a modest population of 131,000, and its largest town, Easley, has a modest but prosperous population of 23,000. As I walked into the public building where the meeting was to be held, I was astonished to see the photos of four Pickens County men who had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor:
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Mike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East. 
