By Deborah Gangloff

Some good ideas should last for a lifetime. Here's an example of one that has.

It was one of those incidents that remind us a good idea can last for generations-and should. I was at the Arlington County Courthouse in Virginia for a press conference with county board chair Chris Zimmerman to announce American Forests' gift of a 184-tree Memorial Tree Grove dedicated to those who died at the Pentagon on 9-11. As I left, I noticed a large oak that had been prominently protected when the courthouse parking lot was constructed around it.

I found at its base a plaque dedicating the tree as a memorial to those from Arlington who died in The Great War, 1917-1919. According to the plaque, the tree and its significance were duly noted and recorded by the American Forestry Association, now American Forests.

The idea of memorial trees in this country began around the time of the signing of the Armistice, when according to American Forests' then-chairman Charles Lathrop Pack, "the people of the United States adopted the tree as their token of tribute." American Forests was the strong promoter of this idea, combining a conservation message for environmental improvement with the creation of a tribute to those who defended civilization in the war. Pack perhaps said it best, "Tree planting to honor the heroic dead of the Great War, or others, has given the world a new form of monument-the memorial that lives."

Hundreds of thousands of trees were planted and recorded with American Forests after WWI, one by one in small towns and communities across the country, by the hundreds in parks and along roads, and by the thousands in Memorial Forests. The tributes ranged from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, and a Grove of States at Exposition Park in Los Angeles, California, to 7,000 pines in a newly created park in Charlotte, Michigan, and a single tree planted by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, using soil from each state in the Union and each Allied country. All began living memorials that created a place of tribute for the local community.

Pack and American Forests felt so strongly about the appropriateness of trees as memorials because anyone can do it. It can be as small and personal a ceremony as a backyard commemoration for a much-loved grandparent and as large and inclusive as the dedication of a new park at Ground Zero in New York.

After World War II American Forests worked with the American Commission for Living War Memorials to promote the idea of Memorial Forests as appropriate and lasting recognition for the services rendered by the men and women who served in the war. Across the country, forests were created or set aside by families, schools and churches, companies and towns to provide places of recreation, to protect watersheds, and become community centers.

Making the world a little greener is a most fitting tribute to loved ones. Across the country and around the world, millions of the 20 million trees in our Global ReLeaf Forests have been planted in remembrance of loved ones lost. Retailer Eddie Bauer and its associates and customers have joined American Forests and the U.S. Forest Service to plant at least one tree for each of the nearly 3,000 people who died on 9-11.

As I write this, young men and women have again been called to defend liberty. It is a sobering reminder that there will always be the need for memorial trees. This spring, we add a solemn wish to our planting ceremonies in Washington, Pennsylvania, and New York. We hope that in the future the need for memorial groves planted on the scale of those from WWI will become obsolete. AF

Deborah Gangloff is American Forests' executive director.[TOP]