Trace Adkins stirred up a bit of con­tro­versy Wednes­day night dur­ing his per­for­mance of “The Christ­mas Song” on NBC’s Christ­mas in Rock­e­feller Cen­ter tree-lighting spe­cial. All because his in-ear mon­i­tor was embla­zoned with the Con­fed­er­ate flag. Many asso­ciate the “stars and bars,” as the flag of the Con­fed­er­acy is often known, with slav­ery and oppres­sion. Trace released a state­ment on his web­site say­ing that was not his intent. “As a proud Amer­i­can, I object to oppres­sion of any kind. To me, the bat­tle flag rep­re­sents remem­brance of my South­ern lin­eage – I am a descen­dant of Con­fed­er­ate sol­diers who fol­lowed that flag into bat­tle,” he wrote. “I advo­cate for the preser­va­tion of America’s bat­tle­fields and hon­est con­ver­sa­tion about our Country’s his­tory. To those who view the flag as a sym­bol of racism, that was not my mes­sage and I did not intend offense.” Trace is cur­rently on a USO tour of Japan, per­form­ing for U.S. ser­vice members.