GETTING THEIR DUE: NEW EXHIBIT HONORS ARMENIAN-AMERICAN SOLDIERS OF WORLD WAR I
By Andre Coleman

Pasadena Weekly
ail/getting_their_due/8202/
Dec 24 2009

A past Pasadena mayor and a former assistant city manager have teamed
up to honor Armenian-American heroes of World War I.

Ed Aghjayan, who served as assistant city manager in Pasadena from
1985 to 1990 before heading to Anaheim, where he served as city
manager until 2000, worked with Bill Paparian, an attorney and former
Marine who served on the City Council from 1987 to 1999, to bring to
Pasadena Central Library "Légion Arménienne: The Armenian Legion
and Its Heroism in the Middle East," a traveling exhibit developed
and prepared by the Armenian Library and Museum of America (ALMA),
located in Massachusetts.

The exhibit, which tells the story of the 5,000 men who fought with the
Allies in World War I and later risked their lives again in defense
of Armenian human rights, will be on display in the library’s Great
Hall through Jan. 17.

A reception co-sponsored by the Western Region of the Armenian Rights
Council of America and the Pasadena Chapter of the Armenian National
Committee will be held at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 3 in the Wright Auditorium
of the Pasadena Central Library. The public is invited.

"The United States had not even entered the war and these guys left
their homes — most of them from the eastern part of the United States
— and volunteered," Paparian said. "There was a pivotal campaign that
they took part in that led to the victory of the British and French
forces in Palestine. All of that is in the exhibit. This is a great
exhibit. I really hope people come out and see it." — André Coleman

The Pasadena Central Library is at 285 E. Walnut St., Pasadena. For
more information, call (626) 744-4060.