As a young man, Heron served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, cutting trees as well as building "cabins, bridges and roads still in use" at Allegany State Park, as of 2008.
He achieved the rank of pharmacist mate first class during the war and was assigned to the United States Navy Amphibious Forces in campaigns in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific.
[2] During Heron's tenure as President of the Seneca Nation of New York, from 1958 to 1960 and again from 1962 to 1964, tribal members strongly opposed relocation of residents for construction of Kinzua Dam, a federal project proposed for flood control and hydropower generation.
[3] During the early 1960s, Heron had been instrumental in trying to persuade the U.S. government to use the Morgan Plan alternative which would have placed the Kinzua flood control dam in a different location.
Seven hundred members of the Seneca Nation were forced to sacrifice their ancestral homes and 10,000 acres of good-bottom farm land to make way for the Kinzua Dam project.