FORT BELVOIR, Va. — A sword from the defense of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. A stopped wristwatch recovered from the wrecked E-Ring of the Pentagon on the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sherman tank that first broke through enemy lines at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.
Those are just a few of the artifacts that tell the 245-year story of the nation’s largest and oldest military branch at the new National Museum of the United States Army.
“We can see the relics and hear the stories through the eyes and ears” of the soldiers who served, said Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday.
Paul Morando, chief of exhibits at the museum, said the goal is to tell the stories of soldiers who served, and tell some of the stories that may not be as well known to the general public.
“We didn’t want to make a hallway of heroes,” he said.
Morando said the museum does not shy away from discussing painful aspects of Army history.
“We don’t shy away from the more sensitive subjects the Army’s been involved in,” he said. “We mention My Lai. We mention Abu Ghraib. We mention Wounded Knee. These events are put out in a factual way for the public to interpret or learn more about, but we do not ignore those subjects.”
The museum is located on a publicly accessible part of Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia, about 20 miles south of the nation’s capital. While it’s a long way from the Smithsonian and the Washington Monument and all the top tourist sites of Washington, it’s relatively close to George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. And it is also a short drive to the National Marine Corps Museum near Quantico; museum officials have coordinated with those sites to try build synergy as a trio of military- and history-related destinations.
The museum was built with private funds raised by the Army Historical Foundation. So far the foundation has raised $183 million of the $200 million construction costs, and the fundraising efforts continue.
