Timing of Statue's Unveiling Upsets Vets

LA Times ^ | May 28, 2005 | CHRIS CAROLA

[neverdem]

Associated Press

FORT EDWARD, N.Y. — Maj. Robert Rogers, the frontiersman whose 18th century manual on guerrilla warfare has become a blueprint for Army Ranger fighting tactics, is getting what some consider a long-overdue honor: a statue in his memory. But some veterans believe unveiling the monument on Memorial Day is insensitive because Rogers was loyal to England during the Revolutionary War.

"I think it's a travesty that we would think about honoring a person, especially someone who fought against us, on that day," said Bob Bearor, who served in the Army's 101st Airborne Division in the 1960s. "It's a sacred day. ... Let's honor our dead who died for our country."

The life-size bronze statue is scheduled to be unveiled during a ceremony on Rogers Island in the Hudson River, 40 miles north of Albany. The island served as the base camp for Rogers' Rangers during the late 1750s, when the British and French fought for control of North America.

The statue will stand near the site where Rogers penned "Rules of Discipline," a common sense guideline for battling the French and their Indian allies in the North American wilderness in 1757. Also known as Rogers' "Standing Orders," the rules have been boiled down over the years from 28 to 19 and are still used to train soldiers at the Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga.

Rule No. 1 of Rogers' manual, popularized and paraphrased in the novel, "The Northwest Passage," is, "Don't forget nothing." Another rule, No. 15, is "Don't sleep beyond dawn. Dawn's when the French and Indians attack."

Although some veterans say they have no qualms with the Rogers statue, Bearor and others say they are upset over a local developer's plans to unveil the statue Monday, when the nation honors its war dead.

[MindBender26]

This is a typical MSM "crisis idiocy" article.

You could stand in the middle of Times Square handing out $20 bills, and the New York Post would find someone to protest it!

It's like todays "Orlando Sentinel"

"INCREASED HURRICANE THREAT"

The small print reveals we now have a 4.9% chance of getting hit by a hurricane this year, as opposed to the usual 4.0% chance. In other words, we have a 1 on 20 chance, as opposed to the typical 1 in 25 chance.

.....and the papers make it into a big story!

[fortheDeclaration]

Don't sleep beyond dawn. Dawn's when the French and Indians attack."

I've got that one memorized!

[neverdem]

This is a typical MSM "crisis idiocy" article.

"Fearing Rogers was a British spy, Washington turned down his request to join the Continental Army at the outset of the American Revolution. Rogers went on to raise a company of loyalist rangers, but failed to have the impact he had in the previous war."

I don't know if you read the whole story, but that sentence was the one that grabbed me.