BALTIMORE — Steve Melnikoff wore the patch during the D-Day invasion of Europe 78 years ago as he crouched in a tank landing ship off Omaha Beach, German artillery shells screaming over his head.

       He wore it the next day, too, as his unit in the 29th Infantry Division secured a position behind enemy lines under heavy fire, and for another 11 months amid some of the bloodiest fighting in history.

       Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight

       When the occasion arises, Melnikoff, 102, still sports the blue-and-gray, yin-yang-style patch that the 29th made famous. And it’s on generous display in his home in Cockeysville, Md. But he knows it could soon end up on history’s proverbial ash heap, and he likes the idea about as much as he did the German soldiers he fought in World War II.

       A congressional naming commission, an eight-member panel created last year, is scrutinizing the names of hundreds of U.S. military bases, as well as “symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia,” to identify and retire any that “commemorate” the Confederate States of America and its causes. The 29th Division logo is under consideration.

       Advertisement

       The military brass created the 29th Division 52 years after the Civil War by combining units from states with legacies on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, including Maryland and Virginia. Its first administrative officer, James Ulio, designed its insignia around the yin-yang symbol, a figure that in Asian traditions signifies a balanced embrace of opposing forces. He made the left half blue to evoke Union uniforms and the right side gray — the color the Confederates wore.

       Historians say U.S. military leaders hoped the formation of the 29th would help reconcile a divided nation, and the unit went on to make history in World War I and World War II. An estimated 15,000 to 16,000 troops wear its patch today, including soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

       “I don’t know how they can even think about getting rid of the patch,” says Melnikoff, one of the handful of veterans still alive who took part in the Normandy invasion. “Thousands of men died wearing it. They’re buried in cemeteries all over Europe. All that time I served, there was never any discussion of what it meant. I’ll never take the patch off, and I don’t think most people wearing it today will, either.”

       Advertisement

       Officials with the 29th Division Association, an advocacy group based in Baltimore, say they have met with the commission to let it know they oppose changing the symbol. Members are using the group’s website to raise funds for lobbying efforts against a switch and to sponsor a petition, which has more than 900 signatures. The group produced a five-minute video that it is preparing to send to members of Congress.

       Others see the matter differently. Dartmouth College history professor Matthew Delmont has been studying military symbols and their effects on Black Americans for years. He is the author of a forthcoming book, “Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad.”

       On learning of the patch controversy, Delmont said he believes American culture has progressed to a stage where it can look objectively at Confederate imagery, consider what it stands for, and make decisions accordingly. The logo was born and gained fame during an era when Black Americans were systematically discriminated against in the military, Delmont says, which he believes undercuts the argument that it reflects national unity.

       Advertisement

       He also wonders why the U.S. government would keep a symbol that evokes a military that fought in support of views that didn’t represent all Americans.

       “It’s not as clear-cut an issue as the Confederate flag. But if we take the time to discuss and think about what the gray in it signifies, we should ask ourselves why a division that is meant to represent the country should honor a force that took up arms against it,” he says.

       Richard Brookshire, co-founder of the Black Veterans Project, a group that aims to address systemic racial inequities across the military, is more blunt.

       “Any attempt to retain symbols of the Confederacy, whether blatant or implied, is an insult to the service of Black Americans,” he wrote in an email to the Baltimore Sun.

       For the commission, some of its tasks are clear-cut. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, which created the panel, required members to recommend new names for nine Army posts named for Confederate officers, including Forts Lee and A.P. Hill in Virginia.

       Advertisement

       Some calls, like the 29th’s logo, will be trickier. The fight to preserve it remains intense.

       Retired Maj. Gen. Linda L. Singh is the former adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard — the first African American and the first woman to head the Guard — which includes 29th Infantry Division units. She says the 29th patch doesn’t belong in the same category as the Confederate flag or monuments. That’s because, she says, it includes the color gray not for its own sake, but in symbolic juxtaposition with the blue.

       “I definitely understand the angst in and around the meaning of different logos, patches, and names,” Singh said. “But the 29th logo is different; it has always been about the power of bringing together the North and the South. It’s a symbol of unity, one of the highest American values. To me, it’s exactly the kind of insignia we should be lifting up right now.”

       — Baltimore Sun