Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • July 13, 2011 Ridgewood American Legion sponsors World War I monument by John Koster American Legion Historian Chris Stout recently explained to the Ridgewood Village Council the group’s plans for a single bronze plaque on a boulder to replace the 14 mostly defunct trees marked with small plaques in honor of individual servicemen from Ridgewood who died as a result of World War I. “It’s about the only spot available,” Stout and American Legion 53 Post Commander Robert Paoli told the council of the location at Graydon Park, near the place where the original 14 memorial trees had been planted. The ceremony is scheduled for Veterans Day. Council support for the project was strong: Mayor Keith Killion is a Vietnam veteran, Deputy Mayor Thomas Riche is the son of a retired lieutenant colonel (and offered to buy a brick for the walkway), and Councilwoman Bernadette Walsh said her grandfather had served in World War I. Councilman Paul Aronsohn, who also supported the plans, thanked the veterans for making sure the site was barrierfree. Ridgewood Village Manager Kenneth Gabbert said the $2,000 to $2,500 for the plaque had already been set aside, and Ridgewood Historians Joe Suplicki and Peggy Norris have already written an inscription that the American Legion has approved. Stout told the story of the 14 memorial trees. Originally planted in 1931 during a program to honor the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington with the planting of two million trees around the United States, the Ridgewood saplings were located near Graydon Pool. Over the next 80 years, some plaques were lost or stolen, and others were absorbed as the trees expanded, and later died. The American Legion rescued several of the surviving plaques. One was found three feet underground with the use of a metal detector. Another blunted a chainsaw as the dead tree the plaque was on was being cut down. But the names of the 14 deceased soldiers and sailors are a matter of record, and will be recorded on the new bronze tablet on the boulder. Stout said the deaths of the veterans were all war-related, though not all deaths took place in combat. One man, an ambulance driver and Ph.D. candidate from Columbia University, was killed near the front rescuing the wounded. American Legion Post 53 Commander Robert Paoli, historian Chris Stout, and Ridgewood Library historian Peggy Norris. Several other soldiers died during the battle of the Argonne Forest, the bloodiest protracted military engagement in American history near the end of the war. Two student (continued on page 16)