Plattsburgh seen from abroad

Lake Champlain Weekly ^ | 05 September 1814 | Quentin Langley

[qlangley]

From the Battle of Plattsburgh edition of Lake Champlain Weekly

First, my enormous thanks to the owners and editor of Lake Champlain Weekly for allowing me, an enemy national, to write this column at a time of war between our countries. This respect for freedom of speech is part of our shared Anglo-American heritage, which your country, to its great credit, has written into its Constitution. As my regular readers will know, I am a great admirer of America, and though your country is less than 40 years old, I am sure it has a great future ahead of it.

In the years since 1776 America has had just four Presidents, all of them very great men. I confess to a particular admiration for your present leader, James Madison, the author of your Constitution. The bravery of your soldiers and sailors in the Battle of Plattsburgh has served President Madison well. It is easy to imagine that, had this war gone the other way, the President would have attracted the blame. This would have been an unfortunate reflection on a very great man.

[Grut]

He needs to work on his early Nineteenth Century prose style. For that matter, he needs to work on his early Twenty First Century ditto.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Plattsburgh is in Clinton County, NY which oddly enough wasn’t won by Hillary in either Senate election.

They also hated the military when I was stationed there.

[Dubh_Ghlase]

I beg to differ. I was a native and appreciated the 380th. My sister married an MP from the base, and my parents rented and sold property to various base personal over the years. I also had friend from the base and worked on the base as a civilian in later years. Now, if you were single and went downtown looking for trouble, there was plenty to be found, depending on where you went. However, that's true no matter where you go or who you are. I will admit there were locals who disliked "outsiders", and the military base personal fit into that category. Sorry if you met up with some of these folks.

If it's any consolation, the base closing has been a major economic hit to the area. I was fortunate to have left there long before that occurred. I was sad to see it happen. I used to love to see the FB111's taking off at night!