Veterans criticize monument plan

FORT EDWARD, N.Y. – Maj. Robert Rogers, a frontiersman whose 18th century manual on guerrilla warfare has become a blueprint for Army Ranger tactics, is getting what some consider a long-overdue honor: a statue.

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 who fought against us, on that day,” said Bob Bearor, who served in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

The life-size bronze statue is 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 guideline for battling the French and their Indian allies in the North American wilderness in 1757.

The local newspaper has editorialized against it, but some veterans don’t mind.

“I don’t see any problem,” said Harold Murray, commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Glens Falls. “That’s going quite a ways back in history.”