Tennessee to Move Charlie Kirk Highway Signs After Vietnam Veterans Object

Tennessee is moving Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway signs off a stretch of road already dedicated to 25 local Vietnam War dead, after veterans said they were never consulted.

The signs went up in June along State Route 386 in Sumner County, which has for years been designated Vietnam Veterans Boulevard in honor of the 25 Sumner County service members who died in the Vietnam War.

State Rep. Johnny Garrett, who selected the location, has agreed to move the Kirk designation to Long Hollow Pike in Goodlettsville.

The objection, according to local officials, was not to Kirk being honored in Sumner County. It was to the placement of a second memorial on a roadway already set aside for the county’s Vietnam dead, and to the fact that the veterans were not told beforehand.

“Many of our Vietnam veterans were angry and frustrated to see this designation placed on ground set aside to honor their brothers in arms,” Sumner County Commissioner Jeremy Mansfield told Military.com.

“To every Vietnam veteran who spoke up, thank you,” he said. “Your opinion on this mattered, and I was surprised to learn they were never consulted before the first sign went up.”

Already Spoken For

Vietnam Veterans Boulevard has carried its designation for years, a tribute to the 25 men from Sumner County who died in the war. For the veterans who came home, the road is a daily, physical reminder of the ones who did not.

The Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway designation was approved by the Tennessee General Assembly in May, folded into an omnibus bill, a piece of legislation that bundles unrelated measures into a single vote.

State Rep. Johnny Garrett selected the location on State Route 386, and the signs went up in June, with the city of Goodlettsville involved in the installation. Sumner County Mayor John Isbell told Nashville’s WKRN that he was unaware of the signs until he saw them posted on social media.

Kirk’s supporters welcomed the tribute. Activist Riley Gaines, who said she knew Kirk personally, called it a beautiful tribute that drivers would see daily. The veterans saw it very differently.

​When the Signs Come Down

The Tennessee Department of Transportation said the timing is not its call. “The Tennessee General Assembly approves memorial designation of roadways, while the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) is responsible for fabricating and installing the signage,” the department said in a statement.

“Regarding the placement or removal of the signage, TDOT will follow the direction provided by the General Assembly, which we have not yet received.” The agency that makes and installs the signs does not decide where they go. As of its statement, TDOT was still waiting on the legislature.

Honoring Both

The resolution came down quickly, with no vitriol that has attached to Kirk’s name in other places. Garrett, the legislator who chose the original location, agreed to move the Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway designation to Long Hollow Pike in Goodlettsville. He framed the change as a way to keep both tributes intact.

“I’m more proud of their service above and beyond any politics to make sure we continue and maintain their service and sacrifice while also honoring Charlie Kirk,” Garrett said, according to Nashville’s FOX 17. “The most important thing is that we can honor both.”

Mansfield said the new location would honor Kirk “without taking anything away from those we already promised to remember.” Local veterans, he said, appreciated the quick response and believed the new site respected both the activist and the men memorialized on Vietnam Veterans Boulevard.

A Road That’s Theirs

The mechanics of putting up and taking down a memorial highway sign in Tennessee are split between two bodies, a division the state was careful to point out.

In other words, the agency that makes and installs the signs does not decide where they go, and as of its statement, it was still waiting for the legislature’s instruction to move them. Military.com reached out to TDOT for the timeline and cost of relocating the signage.

The Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway will exist in Sumner County. It will simply exist a few miles away, on Long Hollow Pike, on ground not already claimed by another set of names.

State Route 386 will remain what it has been: Vietnam Veterans Boulevard, for the 25 men from one Tennessee county who died in a war more than half a century ago, and for the veterans who came home and have made sure, once more, that the road stays theirs.