Harrison Freer was an advocate for bicycle recreation, tourism, and commuting. He was an advocate for the environment, for water quality, for sustainability and resilience. That work manifested in lakefront septic regulations, in work toward municipal septic for Assembly Point on Lake George, in Queensbury being part of the Climate Smart Community program, and more.
Harrison was a hard worker, but a quiet one. He didn’t toot his own horn. He was a team player, and yes, he was part of the team at the Pentagon that developed military GPS, the civilian side of which has become integrated in all of our lives.
In recent months Harrison had been focused on the mundane issue of sidewalks in Ward 2, specifically in providing sidewalks for pedestrian safety for kids walking back and forth between Glens Falls high school and the Morse athletic fields across the city line in Queensbury. While it is more prosaic than satellites in space it is an issue that came with its own sets of problems and Harrison was working those problems one at a time.
In my mind the work Harrison did that he was not generally recognized for was in promoting diversity in government, specifically in recruiting women to serve in elected and appointed public office in Queensbury, a town with an atrocious record for women in leadership positions. Yes, there is the town clerk, but in roughly 21 other offices (supervisor, town board, county supervisor, planning board, ZBA) at any one time in the last couple of decades the number of women in those positions was often zero. Sometimes the number was (off the top of my head) as many as 3. Maybe 4 counting alternates. I believe at the moment that out of those 21 seats there is one woman serving as an alternate on the planning board or ZBA. She may have been promoted to a regular seat recently. Harrison worked hard to change that. He had a hand in recruiting nearly every Democratic woman running for office in Queensbury in more than a decade.
Thanks for adding in those details. It is the dedication of people such as Harrison Freer that make small-town communities like Queensbury so great. We don't talk about that nearly enough when we are talking about politics.
I've read a lot of WWII books in the last year. And war is tough.. and there are situations where your best friend was killed.. I haven't read many VietNam books, but I assume many things are similar.
This is NOT a defense of Calley, but I often wonder how one doesn't become a savage during war.
Like you, I have also read my share of books about war and its brutality. It is the part those of us at home don't want to think about. I don't know how anyone goes to war and does not come back changed. Look at the current rates of suicide in the military. We don't talk about that enough either. The difference with My Lai was that there was photographs as it happened. And yet justice was still not served. It was as if people did not want to believe their eyes.
there is good and bad in all groups, we need to embrace the good... and distain the bad...
We should not sell our soul in the support of all when it includes evil
I admire groups like 'Wounded Warriors'
but wonder, why do we need a group like that, why doesn't our government support them.
Of course, the same people (republicans) who want to blame everyone but themselves don't get it. They blame the homeless veterans on Democrats, when it was reagan who closed mental institutions (where they were getting help) that made them homeless
I agree 100 percent. I sometimes wonder - selfishly perhaps - why people aren't giving standing ovations to reporters an editors at their local newspapers for keeping them informed, rather than complaining they changed their favorite comic strip.
I never knew (or thought about?) what happened to Calley. I was a child in 1969, but I remember My Lai. The protection afforded by race, gender, social status is breathtaking. And depressing.
Well, my guess is that the NBAers would think it beneath them. If you watched any of the games, it is very different. This is YMCA pickup basketball when you don't have enough guys to play. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed watching regular players who were not superstars. I'm OK with not winning a Gold Medal once in awhile.
Lucian Truscott recently wrote about Calley as well if you’re interested. He was apparently grossly incompetent for the position he was put in due to the difficulty in getting people to serve because of the unpopularity of the war.
When I heard that William Calley had died, I immediately knew who that was, even after all this time. Thank you for relaying the details again for us here, even though so difficult to read. I will share with my kids. I’m glad to know he finally felt remorse for the people he massacred and also for the men he directed who had to live with the horror they perpetrated. I’m afraid that the combination of power, war, guns will guarantee that stories like My Lai and Abu Graibe will not be the last we read about the depravity of humans in war with each other.
This was a HORRIFIC war that sent young men and women to a country we had no business being in, and directing them to do horrific things. I do believe it's best left to posterity to decide the ultimate right or wrong. Sooo many American lives were destroyed because of the Politics of it. I can guarantee you Calley paid a severe price in his soul for his actions that day. Best left alone now.
Such blatant proof that forcing a draft on young men at this time was abusive. So many in our generation were horrified by what they were being forced to participate in.
What Calley and the others did at My Lai, and all the other horrific massacres and war crimes committed across centuries by all kinds of countries and regimes have in common is first the soldiers were taught to dehumanize the enemy. In Vietnam they were the gooks. In WWll they were the Krauts and the Japs. And so on. It is necessary, if there is to be war, to make us think of the enemy as somehow less than, otherwise how could you get so many people who otherwise would never kill anyone to shoot at each other? It says something about a fundamental flaw in our human nature that we all know this, yet we keep going to war anyway.
I wish I could remember where I read it (or even who it was about, I guess some saint or other), but something that has stuck with me ever since was a passage about a man whose task it was after some terrible battle to go out and tend to the wounded. He was chastised for giving equal care to both the soldiers from his side and from the other. His defense was “But the light of God shone from each one, and truly I could not tell the difference.” We all would do well to remember that.
Concerning My Lai and William "Rusty" Calley: I was in 9th grade when that happened and I saw the horrible photos. Much later I learned that helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson realized what was happening and spotted American troops advancing toward a bunker where about 40 to 50 Vietnamese civilians were cowering. Thompson settled his ship between the bunker and the advancing American troops, and ordered his gunner, Larry Colburn, to open fire on the Americans if they continued to advance toward the bunker. The soldiers backed off, and those villagers were saved. Calley insisted at his trial that he was following the orders of his captain. That would be Captain Ernest Medina, who was also charged and who also suffered no actual criminal penalties. I have a story about him. A friend of mine who was a reporter at our paper had earlier worked up in Wisconsin. He told me that one day he was covering a large Chamber of Commerce meeting or something similar when he was introduced to a guy who was prominent in real estate, one Ernie Medina. As he shook hands with the man he asked, "Captain Medina?" At that instant, he said, Medina's hand slid from his "like a fish." Medina spun on his heel and walked rapidly out of the venue, to the bafflement of the gathering's host, who had introduced them. But my friend knew exactly what was going on, and so did Ernie Medina.
Harrison Freer was an advocate for bicycle recreation, tourism, and commuting. He was an advocate for the environment, for water quality, for sustainability and resilience. That work manifested in lakefront septic regulations, in work toward municipal septic for Assembly Point on Lake George, in Queensbury being part of the Climate Smart Community program, and more.
Harrison was a hard worker, but a quiet one. He didn’t toot his own horn. He was a team player, and yes, he was part of the team at the Pentagon that developed military GPS, the civilian side of which has become integrated in all of our lives.
In recent months Harrison had been focused on the mundane issue of sidewalks in Ward 2, specifically in providing sidewalks for pedestrian safety for kids walking back and forth between Glens Falls high school and the Morse athletic fields across the city line in Queensbury. While it is more prosaic than satellites in space it is an issue that came with its own sets of problems and Harrison was working those problems one at a time.
In my mind the work Harrison did that he was not generally recognized for was in promoting diversity in government, specifically in recruiting women to serve in elected and appointed public office in Queensbury, a town with an atrocious record for women in leadership positions. Yes, there is the town clerk, but in roughly 21 other offices (supervisor, town board, county supervisor, planning board, ZBA) at any one time in the last couple of decades the number of women in those positions was often zero. Sometimes the number was (off the top of my head) as many as 3. Maybe 4 counting alternates. I believe at the moment that out of those 21 seats there is one woman serving as an alternate on the planning board or ZBA. She may have been promoted to a regular seat recently. Harrison worked hard to change that. He had a hand in recruiting nearly every Democratic woman running for office in Queensbury in more than a decade.
Thanks for adding in those details. It is the dedication of people such as Harrison Freer that make small-town communities like Queensbury so great. We don't talk about that nearly enough when we are talking about politics.
He was a sincere "doer" not a blabber. He leaves a gaping hole in our community.
This is probably the most interesting and, I guess, saddest thing about government.
People who do the most good are often not recognized..
But it is never too late to change that.
I've read a lot of WWII books in the last year. And war is tough.. and there are situations where your best friend was killed.. I haven't read many VietNam books, but I assume many things are similar.
This is NOT a defense of Calley, but I often wonder how one doesn't become a savage during war.
Like you, I have also read my share of books about war and its brutality. It is the part those of us at home don't want to think about. I don't know how anyone goes to war and does not come back changed. Look at the current rates of suicide in the military. We don't talk about that enough either. The difference with My Lai was that there was photographs as it happened. And yet justice was still not served. It was as if people did not want to believe their eyes.
This is where I have problems with unconditional
support the troops
or
support the blue
there is good and bad in all groups, we need to embrace the good... and distain the bad...
We should not sell our soul in the support of all when it includes evil
I admire groups like 'Wounded Warriors'
but wonder, why do we need a group like that, why doesn't our government support them.
Of course, the same people (republicans) who want to blame everyone but themselves don't get it. They blame the homeless veterans on Democrats, when it was reagan who closed mental institutions (where they were getting help) that made them homeless
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/04/24/heres-how-reagans-decision-to-close-mental-institutions-led-to-the-homelessness-crisis/
It is also about how the military, the courts and the president's handled the massacre. Thanks for writing about that and about justice not served.
I agree 100 percent. I sometimes wonder - selfishly perhaps - why people aren't giving standing ovations to reporters an editors at their local newspapers for keeping them informed, rather than complaining they changed their favorite comic strip.
I never knew (or thought about?) what happened to Calley. I was a child in 1969, but I remember My Lai. The protection afforded by race, gender, social status is breathtaking. And depressing.
Thinking about those bone spurs in a certain Queens resident.
No offense to Jimmer, but why didn’t the US send top NBAers for the 3-on-3? Every medal counts.
Well, my guess is that the NBAers would think it beneath them. If you watched any of the games, it is very different. This is YMCA pickup basketball when you don't have enough guys to play. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed watching regular players who were not superstars. I'm OK with not winning a Gold Medal once in awhile.
Lucian Truscott recently wrote about Calley as well if you’re interested. He was apparently grossly incompetent for the position he was put in due to the difficulty in getting people to serve because of the unpopularity of the war.
https://open.substack.com/pub/luciantruscott/p/the-convictions-of-lt-calley-dead?r=9qpud&utm_medium=ios
Yes, I've read that as well. Probably doesn't mean anything, but he was small in stature too at just 5-2 or 5-3.
When I heard that William Calley had died, I immediately knew who that was, even after all this time. Thank you for relaying the details again for us here, even though so difficult to read. I will share with my kids. I’m glad to know he finally felt remorse for the people he massacred and also for the men he directed who had to live with the horror they perpetrated. I’m afraid that the combination of power, war, guns will guarantee that stories like My Lai and Abu Graibe will not be the last we read about the depravity of humans in war with each other.
This was a HORRIFIC war that sent young men and women to a country we had no business being in, and directing them to do horrific things. I do believe it's best left to posterity to decide the ultimate right or wrong. Sooo many American lives were destroyed because of the Politics of it. I can guarantee you Calley paid a severe price in his soul for his actions that day. Best left alone now.
We must learn from history so we don’t repeat it.
Yet we never do, do we.
I was in high school when My Lai occurred. And that’s when I became an atheist. No explanation needed.
Such blatant proof that forcing a draft on young men at this time was abusive. So many in our generation were horrified by what they were being forced to participate in.
What Calley and the others did at My Lai, and all the other horrific massacres and war crimes committed across centuries by all kinds of countries and regimes have in common is first the soldiers were taught to dehumanize the enemy. In Vietnam they were the gooks. In WWll they were the Krauts and the Japs. And so on. It is necessary, if there is to be war, to make us think of the enemy as somehow less than, otherwise how could you get so many people who otherwise would never kill anyone to shoot at each other? It says something about a fundamental flaw in our human nature that we all know this, yet we keep going to war anyway.
I wish I could remember where I read it (or even who it was about, I guess some saint or other), but something that has stuck with me ever since was a passage about a man whose task it was after some terrible battle to go out and tend to the wounded. He was chastised for giving equal care to both the soldiers from his side and from the other. His defense was “But the light of God shone from each one, and truly I could not tell the difference.” We all would do well to remember that.
Concerning My Lai and William "Rusty" Calley: I was in 9th grade when that happened and I saw the horrible photos. Much later I learned that helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson realized what was happening and spotted American troops advancing toward a bunker where about 40 to 50 Vietnamese civilians were cowering. Thompson settled his ship between the bunker and the advancing American troops, and ordered his gunner, Larry Colburn, to open fire on the Americans if they continued to advance toward the bunker. The soldiers backed off, and those villagers were saved. Calley insisted at his trial that he was following the orders of his captain. That would be Captain Ernest Medina, who was also charged and who also suffered no actual criminal penalties. I have a story about him. A friend of mine who was a reporter at our paper had earlier worked up in Wisconsin. He told me that one day he was covering a large Chamber of Commerce meeting or something similar when he was introduced to a guy who was prominent in real estate, one Ernie Medina. As he shook hands with the man he asked, "Captain Medina?" At that instant, he said, Medina's hand slid from his "like a fish." Medina spun on his heel and walked rapidly out of the venue, to the bafflement of the gathering's host, who had introduced them. But my friend knew exactly what was going on, and so did Ernie Medina.