Here's the story of a minor flap over the timing of a statue unveiling dedicated to Maj. Robert Rogers of Rogers' Rangers and French and Indian War fame. Some think the unveiling of the statue on Memorial Day is in bad taste. Apparently, when the Revolution rolled around, Washington didn't trust him and refused his application to join the Continental Army, and Rogers ended up fighting as a loyalist against the Revolution (to little effect). I can see the reason for the objection, and without taking a side one way or the other, I just thought it might be interesting to note (or not, but here it is), that Rogers had made no small - though unwitting - contribution to the success of the cause of the Revolution himself. You see, many of the participants in the Battles of Lexington and Concord had been veterans of Rogers' Rangers. The experience of some of these older men was a large measure of the reason that the British troops, far from encountering the country-farmer bumpkins, only skilled at shooting deer from a distance that they expected, instead encountered well-lead militiamen, drilled in formal skirmishing and guerilla tactics.

Vets Criticize Timing of Statue's Unveiling