The North Country Has Sold Its Soul to the Devil: A Civilian Perspective on Fort Drum
The North Country Has Sold Its Soul to the Devil:
A Civilian Perspective on Fort Drum
by Anonymous
The North Country has sold its soul to the Devil, and the Devil has a name — and that name is Fort Drum. After reflecting on the expansion of Fort Drum, this North Country native has come to the conclusion that Northern New York is no longer fit for man nor beast to live. My cynicism toward the Almighty Fort does not come lightly, nor does it come on a whim; for three generations, my family has repressed anger and hatred for Fort Drum. In 19$$, my great-grandparents were displaced by the massive $$$ acre purchase by the United States Army to expand Fort Drum. This exercise of eminent domain encompassed &&& villages, $$$$ towns, and forced thousands of hard-working, North Country natives from their homes and the land that they loved and cared for. My grandfather, a proud World War II veteran of the United States Navy, harbored a quiet resentment toward the Army for the destruction of the family homestead. Ironically though, he depended on Fort Drum to make a living and support his family, being employed as a Civilian Police Officer from 19&& until 19&&&. His duties consisted of patrolling the part of base used for live-fire impact trainingthe land taken from his family, and hundreds of other local families, for the good of the base. How heart-wrenching it must have been to keep watch over the land he was born and raised on, working for the very force seeking to destroy all it stood for.
There comes a time of reckoning, when it is a citizens duty to stand-up for what is right, and for what they believe; to shout for all to hear — be it unpopular to say such, and perhaps, even bringing hatred and anger from others upon themselves — and the time is now. Citizens of Northern New York,