"RNCIC saves our national cemetery" was the heading of an editorial in the Northwest Arkansas Times on Aug. 8, 1991. That heading is still an accurate statement today.
Many may ask, "What is the RNCIC and where is the National Cemetery?"
The Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corp. formed as a non-profit by several veterans in 1984 when the Fayetteville National Cemetery was running out of burial space for veterans and facing closure. The Fayetteville National Cemetery is at 700 S. Government Ave. off Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Fayetteville.
For more than 33 years, this group has purchased land adjacent to the Fayetteville National Cemetery and increased its size by over 200 percent since the cemetery's founding in 1867. This has been accomplished through numerous donations and fund-raising activities.
The Department of Veterans Affairs will not purchase additional land for an existing national cemetery. Other national cemeteries across America have been permanently closed when interment space is fully utilized. To the best of our knowledge, the RNCIC is the only non-profit corporation of its kind working to purchase adjacent land and donate that land to the Veterans Administration to keep a national cemetery open for veteran burials. That is the mission of the RNCIC, to save our national cemetery in Fayetteville.
The group meets at 10 a.m. on the second Saturday of each month at American Legion Post 27, 1195 S. Curtis Ave. in Fayetteville. New members are needed, as well as your donations.
Go to the website RNCIC.com to read the editorial article from Aug. 8, 1991, in its entirety and for more information about the RNCIC. I am so proud to offer my volunteer services to such a worthy cause. It is a small repayment for the service and the lives given by those interred at the Fayetteville National Cemetery.
Lorna Sterrett
Bella Vista
Why not get rid of Union Gen. Sheridan statues, too?
As for Civil War statuary, I think everything named after Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan should be removed because he was the architect of the U.S. Army's campaign against the plains Indians from 1878 to 1883. You may remember he coined the phrase, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
There was a three-day celebration and parades for the troops who'd been in the service of the Union Army. The first two days, white soldiers marched in uniform, and the third day, the black soldiers marched in street clothes. Black Confederate troops were afforded pensions and marched in ensuing celebrations and parades in Southern uniforms.
Read Black Confederates by Barrow, Segars and Rogenburg if you care about Southern black troop militias during the conflict.
Steve Hill
Bella Vista
Commentary on 09/18/2017