More than 80 members of local Sons of Confederate Veterans camps met at R.J.s Steakhouse in Statesboro Saturday for the ninth annual Lee-Jackson Awards Banquet. According to 5th Brigade Commander Mike Mull, the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) has members in 30 states, from Alaska to Hawaii to Florida to Maine.
    Mull's district covers 13 counties and has at present nine camps, each of which average s some 40 or 50 active members. The three camps holding the event were the Ogeechee Rifles of Statesboro, commanded by Deke Cox; the Ebenezer Rifles of Rincon, commanded by Ralph Randall; and the Black Creek Volunteers of Sylvania, commanded by Adam Bazemore.
    This event is named in honor of the Confederacy's two most illustrious military commanders: General Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson of the Army of Northern Virginia. The special guest speaker was Councilman Paul Gramling of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi Department.
    Gramling is currently running for the office of Lieutenant Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, one of three Armies of the SCV. The other two are the Army of Tennessee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Georgia's SCV camps are in Army of the Tennessee.
    The meeting was called to order by the presentation of the colors. Next came the reading of the SCV's Charge, first given to them by Lieutenant General Stephen Dill Lee, the Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans at a Confederate Veterans meeting held in New Orleans in April 1906.
    Lee warned Confederate veterans and members of the fledgling SCV (which was formed in Richmond, Virginia in 1896) who were present that their descendants must be ever vigilant to ensure the “true story of the War of Northern Aggression must always be told.”
    As Mull and Ogeechee Rifles Camp Commander Deke Cox both stated, the purpose of the SCV is to ensure that the sacrifices of the soldiers who wore the Confederate Grey be remembered, and that the real reasons the South felt the need to secede from the Union be told.
    Cox stated that the requirements for membership in the SCV are simple. You must prove that you are a direct descendant of a Confederate soldier. Every SCV camp has person trained in genealogy to help prospective members prove their Southern heritage.
    Cox declared that the SCV is not a political entity, but rather a historical organization committed to keeping the history of the South and the Confederacy alive. According to Eddie Cockman, the Ogeechee Rifles Lieutenant Camp Commander, the SCV is a family organization and not just another “men's club.”
    Saturday, members dressed up in period attire for camp functions. Gramling shared with the audience that since he joined the SCV in Shreveport, La., in 1994, he has seen an incredible growth of interest in battling the political correctness that is sweeping the nation.
    Gramling said that many elsewhere would lay the blame for Americas greatest national conflict directly at the feet of every Southerner. Gramling urged parents to be especially careful to make sure that what their children are being taught in school about the history of the South is the truth and not some sanitized version of what others would want them to believe.