This letter is in response to John Severtson’s letter on July 13, where he expressed his unhappiness with the sheriff’s office entry in the Third of July Parade.

Just prior to the parade, I talked with a parade organizer about who should lead, and I said the nation’s flag should lead and that nothing should precede the colors. As a retired sergeant first class, combat engineer, with the Army and the Army National Guard, the colors are just as important to me as they are to you.  However, I wasn’t an organizer, I was a participant and was advised to line up behind the PD’s squad car. That was fine.  The parade committee has a reason for law enforcement to lead the parade. Feel free to ask them if you’d like to know.

I chose to use our new tracked Polaris ATV to show everyone the new tool the sheriff’s office has for different operations. You wrote “I felt it was very disrespectful to our American flag and color guard members carrying and guarding the flags to have an ATV and several rowdy people between the squad car and the color guard.” You’re talking about me, my chief deputy, one of our 911 dispatchers and her husband. All four of us walked the route next to the ATV. Despite the parade being a lot of fun seeing so many people, I feel we stayed under control. I disagree that our ATV was disrespectful to the flag or the color guard. It was clean, pretty much brand-new and driven by a patrol sergeant. You may not have liked our ATV, but people along the route seemed to enjoy seeing it. Todd’s three kids were also with us. One child rode inside the ATV the entire route and the oldest walked fairly close by me. Todd’s 4-year-old daughter rode most of the route in the ATV. We walked along the side of the ATV the entire route and waved to people and said hi to them. That’s not rowdy.

I would’ve preferred a face-to-face about this, John, and the Albert Lea Tribune is not the right venue for your issue.  Instead, you could’ve called me or stopped by the LEC and we could’ve talked about it.  However, you chose this route.   In the end, I told the fair organizer the colors should have gone first and lead the parade, but again, that wasn’t my call.  Also, there weren’t any rowdy people in the sheriff’s office parade entry who were disrespectful to the colors or color guard. Lastly, I don’t understand how an ATV could be “disrespectful” to our flag, to you and the color guard.

Next time, John, feel free to call me. We could meet and talk about what’s bothering you.

 

Kurt Freitag

Freeborn County sheriff