The American Legion's Historic
Paris Post #1
Legionnaires and friends marching up the famous Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris
American Independence Day ceremony at the Paris landmark, the Arch of Triumph
About Paris Post # 1. It was chartered by the American Legion on December 13, 1919, just several months after the birth of the Legion here in Paris in March 1919. We have been here ever since (except for an absence from 1941 to 1945 during the German occupation of France). Our original members were veterans of the American Expeditionary Force that came to France in 1917 to join our allies in World War I. We lost the last of our World War I veterans years ago. Currently we have 378 members who are veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Lebanon/Grenada and Operation Just Cause/Desert Storm. Just over ten percent of our members live here in France and the others live at various locations throughout the world, mostly in the US. We welcome veterans who want to join the American Legion and Legionnaires from other posts who want to transfer to Paris Post #1 If you are interested in becoming a member of Paris Post #1, you can click on the gold star tabs at the left of your computer screen for “Membership Info” and “Application” for help. Or, you can send an email to: encanadygsu60@orange.fr giving your name, address and dates and branch of military service. We will respond promptly with the information you request.
Our Activities. The post is very active from early September through the 4th of July. We have our regular monthly meetings during that period. We participate in our special celebrations on Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day (French Armistice Day) and in many other ceremonies. We are represented in the American Legion Department of France Executive Committee meetings during the year and in its annual meeting in June. We publish our newsletter three times a year and make it available to all members either through our website or by direct mail for members who do not have access to the internet. Click on the gold star tabs “Special Events” for our schedule of coming events, “Newletter” for copies of our past newsletters, “Photo Gallery” for photos of our past meetings and ceremonies.The Future of Our Website. At this time it is still under construction. Originally, we used the website as part of our system for communicating with our members and it continues to work quite satisfactorily for that purpose. We have now added the objective of using it to tell the long and interesting history of Paris Post #1 not only to our members but to the general public as well. The history will be told in parts with each part being told in its own separate web page. We have already begun the history with the web pages that can be accessed with the gold star tabs "World War I (about America's Role in World War I), " Founding of AL" (about the founding of the American Legion here in Paris), “Memorial Day” (describing the first Memorial Day in France in 1920), “Mausoleum” (about our mausoleum acquired in 1937) and “Pershing Hall” (about the building acquired in 1927 and used as our post home until 1992). During the process of writing the history, we will revise and refine these three web pages. We plan to add other historical web pages on subjects such as (1) the 1927 American Legion National Convention in Paris, and (2) the story of our heroic former post Commander George Aubrey killed by the Germans in 1944. We do expect other subjects to come to mind while we are working on the history. So the list will surely grow. We expect the job to take quite a while to complete.
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