The Bladensburg World War I Veterans Memorial is a cross-shaped memorial erected in 1925 by The American Legion to honor 49 Prince George’s County men who gave their lives while serving in WWI. Mothers who lost their sons in World War I designed the memorial to recall the cross-shaped grave markers standing over the countless American graves on the Western Front of that war. For more than 90 years it memorialized the service and sacrifice of those 49 men without complaint. But in 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declared that the memorial violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.