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Health & Fitness

Wednesday: New Monument to Camp Shanks Dedicated on Piermont Pier

Veterans, families and friends are set to gather on the Piermont Pier Wednesday evening to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Camp Shanks, the sprawling World War II U.S. Army camp that prepared 1.3M G.I.s for war. 

Over the summer, a new monument to Camp Shanks was placed in the memorial park near the end of the Piermont Pier. A 6:30 p.m. ceremony is planned to dedicate the monument – which consists of a stone quarried in West Nyack and a bronze plaque.

Jerry Donnellan, director of the Rockland County Veterans Services Agency, said local veterans have been invited to the dedication, which is also expected to include a honor guard from the Tappan Fire Department and local officials from Piermont and the Town of Orangetown. The public is also welcome to attend the ceremony, Donnellan said.

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The new memorial pays tribute to the impact Camp Shanks had on Orangetown and Rockland County. The camp, which turned farmland into a massive complex of more than 2,500 buildings, was spread out from Blauvelt to Tappan. After World War II, the base became Shanks Village – postwar housing for returning G.I.s and their families.

Almost all traces of the camp are gone, but the lives of many local families were shaped by Camp Shanks and Shanks Village. The Camp Shanks Museum in Orangeburg preserves the memory of Camp Shanks, where U.S. troops set out to European battlefields via train and from ships that pick them up at the Piermont Pier.

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