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Vets Unveil New World War I Monument in Macedonia

New War World I Memorial  Nordonia Hills Veterans Park
New War World I Memorial Nordonia Hills Veterans Park

A new monument honoring World War I will be unveiled at the Nordonia Hills Veterans Memorial Park in Macedonia on Sunday. This Veterans Day marks the 100 th anniversary of that conflict.

The new war monument joins three others in the park on the corner of South Bedford Road and Route 82, said Dave Pristash, who heads a committee of local veterans groups that spearheaded the project.

The black granite memorial features white laser-etched images of combatants and battlefields.

A local company, Kotecki Family Memorials, crafted the monument. Edward Kotecki said his family was approached by the veterans groups and hired to help make this monument and others in the park.

The group of volunteers and members of the VFW Post 6768 and the American Legion Nordonia Hills Post 801 helped raise more than $150,000 to place four monuments in the park dedicated to different wars, Pristash said.

“Most of us are Vietnam vets so the purpose is try to alleviate some of the issues that we all endured and to give veterans a place that was for them,” he said.

The ceremony on Sunday begins at 10:45 a.m. and will feature a special World War I tribute at 11 a.m.

“At the 11 th hour we’ll bring the flag down. We hold it down for two minutes and then we raise the flag back up. At that point we’ll do a 21 gun salute,” Pristash said.

The group plans to continue raising money to place memorials in the park for every U.S. conflict going back to the revolutionary war.

 

 

Marlene Harris-Taylor
Marlene is the director of engaged journalism at Ideastream Public Media.