{"id":119135,"date":"2014-07-10T22:28:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T04:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/honor-one-honor-all\/"},"modified":"2014-07-10T22:28:16","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T04:28:16","slug":"honor-one-honor-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/honor-one-honor-all\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Honor one. Honor all.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Geer\"
Geer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Tears were shed inside City Hall Tuesday as municipal leaders memorialized a Cortez soldier killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to thank the city for even considering this,\u201d said Harold Geer, pausing to regain his composure. \u201cGeorge loved this town. I consider it an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cortez City Council voted unanimously Tuesday, July 8, to name the Carpenter Natural Area addition after Army Pfc. George Raymond Geer. Geer, 27, died after a car bomb detonated near his position in Ramadi, Iraq, on Jan. 17, 2005.<\/p>\n

Tim Kline, chair of the city\u2019s planning and zoning commission, initiated the naming ceremony for the city\u2019s proposed 60-acre outdoor park system of hiking and biking trails. He told city leaders they should be proud of their decision to keep a hometown hero\u2019s memory alive for generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge paid the ultimate price to ensure our freedoms,\u201d said Kline. \u201cThis is one small way to say thank you to him and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Army veteran Robert Valencia, a friend of the Geer family, told council members he was thankful that signage plans at the outdoor park would also include the words, \u201cHonor one. Honor all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge is our legacy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fine tribute,\u201d added Marvin Hermanns, commander of American Legion Ute Mountain Post 75.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge was a wonderful man,\u201d said friend P.J. West. \u201cHe is an excellent representative for our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geer joined the Army at the age of 25, just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been Geers in the military every generation since the Revolutionary War,\u201d said Harold Geer. \u201cGeorge believed in his country and what he was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geer served a year in South Korea and went to Iraq in July 2004. He was stationed in Ramadi, where he was a gunner with the 503rd Airborne Infantry.<\/p>\n

From Michigan, the Geer family moved to southwestern Colorado when George was 12. He graduated from Dolores High School, where he participated in wrestling, baseball, football and track.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was easygoing and friendly,\u201d his father recalled. \u201cHe knew everybody. He looked out for the underdog. He was afraid of nobody. He lived in a black and white world. What was right was right. Wrong was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geer was survived by his father; his older sister, Hope; and his mother, Lois. His brother, Chad, died in a car accident in 1989.<\/p>\n

tbaker@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

memorializes local soldier who died in Iraq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[318,13,2346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-119135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez-municipal-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-people-profiles"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119135"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=119135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}