In mid May 1926, with a bit of prodding from legionnaires in nearby communities, a group of veterans in the village of Lake Ronkonkoma decided to start their own Legion post. Shortly thereafter those veterans built both a place and identity. Eight years after their military service of 1917-1919, in accordance with the structure of the already functioning national organization, they organized a local Legion unit. Since the end of the war, several of these veterans had been expressing interest both in honoring their war dead and in keeping their wartime comradeship alive. In that spirit, they named their new post William Merritt Hallock after one of their departed brothers in combat, a twenty-four year old soldier from Lake Ronkonkoma who had been killed in the trenches of France. Through an eyewitness account, the community knew of Hallock’s violent death on the battlefield at Belleau Wood, and of his unrecoverable body due to a direct hit by an artillery shell.

William Merritt Hallock



THE POST MEMBERS WOULD LIKE TO WISH EVERYONE A HAPPY HOLIDAY AND A HEALTHY NEW YEAR.