I'm Jonathan K. Parton. This is a special K-POP. This past weekend, we celebrated the birthday

of America at a time when the history of America and its founding is being debated and denied,

which is why we're bringing back the conversation I had with Ty Sijili. He's the retired Army

Brigadier General and Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, whose compelling

book, Robert E. Lee & Me, a southerners reckoning with the myth of the lost cause, is a great

antidote to the anti-critical race theory history of gripping the Republican Party. After

all, Sijili reminds us. This myth of the lost cause is still affecting our nation, it's

in our DNA. Racism is the virus in the American Dirt. It's our eternal pandemic, and until

we are honest about it, we are never going to get over this. Here are the rest of this

compelling conversation right now. Ty Sijili, thank you so much for coming to the

podcast. Oh, Jonathan, my absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

I found out about your book. Your book has been out for more than a year now, right?

No, no, it came out the end of January this year. Oh, the end of January this year, because

I got an email from Ron Chernow, who is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Biographies

on Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, the latest one, Grant, and he sent me an email

and he said, you must read. You must read Robert E. Lee & Me by Ty Sijili. You have to read

it. It is right up your alley, and I'm so glad he recommended it, and I'm so glad I read it,

because it truly is something I've been dying to read, and that is a white southerner taking on

race, racism, but most importantly, the myth of the lost cause. And so how about we just start

right at the beginning? Who were you when you were a young kid growing up in Virginia? Who did you

want to model your life after? Jonathan, it's crazy to say it, but I wanted to be like Robert E. Lee.

And I did. My first chapter book was about Robert E. Lee. My dad taught at a school in

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