Rye Dedicates New Monuments on Veterans Day

The City of Rye continued its tradition of honoring Rye veterans on Veterans Day, Monday, November 11, 2024. This year was special. On a beautiful warm, fall day, the City of Rye dedicated the new Veterans Monuments at City Hall. The approximate size of the crowd was one of the largest in the recent history of Veterans Day, approximately 250 people.

Mayor Cohn dedicated a new plaque naming Rye Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Global War on Terror and the Cold War. That plaque includes the names of 50 Rye veterans. The existing WWII plaque in memory of those killed in action was updated to include an additional 15 names. The Vietnam plaque now includes an additional 44 names. And the WWII and Korea plaques were updated with an additional 11 names and 6 names respectively. A complete list of names can be found on the Rye City website https://www.ryeny.gov/community/veterans/ and in the photos below.

Updates to the City Hall Veterans plaques are the result of a two-year effort to collect names and finalize the design. Mayor Cohn and the Rye City Council formed a Veteran Monuments Committee in a formal resolution on August 11, 2021, at the Rye City Council meeting. The committee consisted of City Councilwoman Julie Souza, Rex Gedney of the Landmarks Advisory Committee, Noga Ruttenberg, Rye City Clerk, and Tim Moynihan of the Rye American Legion.

American Legion Post 128 Commander Fred de Barros led the ceremony. He highlighted the American Legion values of the importance of preserving our American traditions and values, improving the quality of life for our nation’s children, caring for veterans and their families, and most importantly, teaching the fundamentals of good citizenship.

Keynote Speaker

This year’s keynote speaker was Captain Leo Matthews whose name is inscribed on the new Afghanistan-Iraq plaque. He is a 2011 graduate of Rye High School and currently serves as an instructor of American Politics at West Point. A military intelligence officer by profession, Leo served with the 75th Ranger Regiment from 2018-2022 and completed three deployments to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.

Prior to that assignment, Leo served in the 173rd Infantry Brigade as an infantry officer. He holds an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University (’24) and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from West Point (’15).

In his talk to honor veterans. Capt. Mathews described the heroic actions on his troops during close quarter contact in a firefight in Afghanistan. His troops were awarded silver stars for courage under fire.

Rye City Mayor, Josh Cohn, County Executive, George Latimer and Assemblyman, Steve Otis all delivered remarks.

As usual, Robin Latimer led the entire gathering in singing of patriotic songs.

Some great photos below and videos below:

From RyeTV: https://ryeny.new.swagit.com/videos/319737

Here is a writeup from myrye.com