Yesterday, across America, people were marking Memorial Day with parades honoring the men and women who died while serving in the country’s armed forces. At the Town of Rochester’s Veterans Park – during the ceremony dedicated to Sergeant Shawn M. Farrell II of Accord, recently killed in Afghanistan – Jessica Niconienko Knapp read Charles Michael Province’s poem:
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It Is The Soldier
It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.
The poem sounded familiar…
Of course it did! In a booklet printed for the 2009 Ulster County Republican Annual Dinner, I read the same poem on a full-page ad bought by New York State Senator John J. Bonacic.
Wait a second! In the ad the poem looks shorter… Lets take a closer look:
Why are the lines in red missing from Mr. Bonacic’s version?
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It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
The highlighted lines were taken out deliberately. How do I know that? Simple! Only the lines in red are missing and the ad reads:
I can’t miss the opportunity to remind everybody what “excerpt” means.
87.5% of a poem is hardly a short extract…
More seriously now, I would like to know what reference bothered Senator Bonacic… the “freedom of speech” or the “campus organizer?” And how about showing some respect for intellectual property?
– Jon Dogar-Marinesco
Rochester Smoke Out 
Manipulator in charge. The County Republicans are fools for allowing this guy to have any influence. $100,000 of unaccounted for charge card expenses charged to his campaign account? YIKES!
Let’s not forget that Bonacic is the originator of all political evil in our county. Bonacic put the Bernardo curse on us, first Len then Terry (she admitted that publicly, he was her “mentor”…). Also, as other commenters on this blog pointed out, we got Bonacic co-conspirator Langdon Chapman hired on our dime. With Roger Rascoe’s wife employed by Bonacic, the entire county Republican party was screwed, apparently forever.
Time for Bonacic to be retired by the voters. What little he does for “the people” he isn’t worth keeping.
Bonacic is the one who started the era of candidates running unchallenged. That’s how he gets elected, automatically, because he makes sure there are no other candidates. Same can be said about Bernardos and Rascoe’s wife… Their motto: Screw the voters!
“It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom to protest.”
The Bonacic’s “improvement” of the poem does not even make sense. What a smuck!
Bonacic and company need Orange Jump suits and Jail time!