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GySgtRet
04-26-06, 05:54 PM
If you wish to attend, you may request a maximum of two tickets by completeing the enclosed Ticket Request Form (Iknow you don't have this) and returning it in the enclosed envelope. To expedite your...

CAS3
04-26-06, 06:12 PM
Thanks Ed,
Hey, You have a date yet??
I have a friend....

LOL :D

thedrifter
04-26-06, 06:37 PM
Thanks Ed for posting...

My youngest daughter has been invited to this plus a guest...since she and her brothers and sister dedicated a brick in their father's name...

Maybe she will remember mom...;)
New hubby will go with mom then...

Ellie

GySgtRet
04-26-06, 06:47 PM
No date I am going alone:(
Oh and by the way you are warmly welcome any time...!!!

GySgtRet
04-26-06, 06:50 PM
I got my notification today. I thought what a gift I could give to this community. I don't think everybody gets one but I wanted to make sure that everybody here at least a chance. It there anyway that this could become a sticky note to keep it in plain view for all to see for a couple of day?

I am glad that your kids will be able to go and to see their father's brick.

Semper Fi to all...!!!

thedrifter
04-26-06, 07:07 PM
Done Ed!

Ellie

Camper51
04-27-06, 09:01 AM
Anyone interested in getting tickets to the dedication of the Marine Corps Museum on Nov 10, 2006 can go to the following link and register:



www.marinemuseumdedication.com (http://www.marinemuseumdedication.com)

Semper Fi

ringoffire
04-27-06, 05:13 PM
Thanks for posting...just registered and requested tickets.

GySgtRet
04-27-06, 05:25 PM
very welcome. I am just glad that I could do this for everybody.

:thumbup:

GySgtRet
05-02-06, 07:42 AM
presents greetings. These tickets are free to us. I just wanted to bring this back up incase you didn't see it last week. I am hoping to see some of you there it would be a great reunion for all of us here on Leatherneck..

Semper Fidelis

Shadowman777
05-02-06, 09:33 AM
presents greetings. These tickets are free to us. I just wanted to bring this back up incase you didn't see it last week. I am hoping to see some of you there it would be a great reunion for all of us here on Leatherneck..

Semper Fidelis

Test

thedrifter
05-05-06, 09:42 AM
May 5, 2006
Engraved bricks to memorialize Marines
by Cpl. Jennifer Brofer
Combat Correspondent, Naval Media Center

Marines can now cement their place in Marine Corps History.

When the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., opens in November, spectators will be able to walk through Semper Fidelis Memorial Park, which overlooks the museum's structure.

Within the park's winding pathways leading up to the rally points will lay thousands of bricks that will be engraved with the names of Marines and loved ones. According to the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Web site, "the rally points will be places to reflect upon the sacrifices past and present Marines make to protect our nation."

According to retired Col. Raymond Hord, vice president of Development & Marketing for the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, anyone can buy a brick for himself or a loved one.

"To honor a family member, or perhaps a friend, [or] a comrade that may have even passed on, this is a wonderful opportunity to be able to memorialize a name in Semper Fidelis Memorial Park," said Hord. Once the museum opens, there will be touch-screen kiosks located within the museum that will allow people to find a specific brick within the park, added Hord.

Bricks are $300 each, and proceeds will go toward helping the National Museum of the Marine Corps in its goal of preserving Marine Corps history. Each brick can have up to three lines, with 20 characters on each line, and anything can be engraved on the bricks, such as the Marine's name, rank, time in service or unit. Anyone interested in purchasing a brick can do so by downloading an order form online at www.marineheritage.org.

Order forms should be sent in soon because the space for bricks is limited, and the bricks will be installed in the order in which registrations are received. The park has enough room for 17,000 engraved bricks, but only 7,300 bricks will be laid for the museum's opening on Nov. 10. Order forms should be sent in by mid-July, which will allow construction workers enough time to lay in the bricks for the dedication ceremony. Bricks can also be purchased after the museum opens, until the park is completed in 2007.

Ellie

My children bought a brick in the memory of their Dad....

GySgtRet
05-05-06, 08:48 PM
You beat me to it and thanks for doing that. At work I don't have time sometimes to add to the site. Marines these tickets are free...!!!

fontman
05-10-06, 07:04 PM
Ellie and I will be in attendance up in Q-Town for the dedication...for sure!

:thumbup:

LIL-NUGGET
05-18-06, 12:42 PM
No date I am going alone:(
Oh and by the way you are warmly welcome any time...!!! I'll go with you GySgtRet! That is, if you haven't found a date to go with.... ;)


~ T.

GySgtRet
05-18-06, 12:51 PM
You are on for this date. I'll meet you out front till you get there.

See you there on the 10th of November.

Semper Fi

:D

goat
05-18-06, 05:05 PM
As a member of Donald J. Ruhl Detachment of MCL I'm still looking for past and present Marines from the great stat of Montana to add to the honor role. I've only got about 100 names so far and I know there's gotta be more. Can you help me gunny?

GySgtRet
05-20-06, 07:13 PM
I found out today that there is a represetative in every states exsept one. I wasn't told which on yet. Anyway, that respresentative is assigned to list all Marines past and present. This is through the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. You may try contacting someone through the foundation to seek other Marines for the reunion in Montana. Sorry I didn't have better information.

Today was the second day for orientation for volunteers for the Marine Coprs Heritage Foundation. As a volunteer I have to donate atleast 8 hours per month and commit for 2 years. We then took a tour of the new Nuseum WOW it is going to be awsome. I cannot describe it any other way sorry to be so cliche' about that. It is going to be hugh. So far the building is on time. The foundation will always have perview of the musem. The government DoN and the Marine Corps will have cog over the structure and security once everything is in place. I was hoping that I would be able to watch the dedication but I may be working as what is called a "Domance" (SP) I think I got that correct. Anyway I hope to see a bunch of you there on the 10th of November.

Semper Fidelis

GySgtRet
05-21-06, 03:36 PM
Marine Corps Heritage Museum. Docent a tourist guide working in some museums or cathedrals a lecturer or teacher in a <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on">u</st1:country-region>niversity, especially one who is not a full-time member of the faculty.


Them there distionary's online are really something. I just ahd to spell it correctly.

beaufort bob
05-30-06, 06:52 PM
:yes: Everyone's enthusiasm about this event is heartwarming. I just returned to my summer home up North having spent the Fall and Winter at my home in Beaufort, S.C. You can see the museum from I-95 in Quantico-Triangle. It still has a way to go in terms of construction. Just a warning, Bros. The dedication is going to be a madhouse. You can't get accomodations within 25 miles. I will be there in spirit, but I wouldn't chance this for "all the tea in China.'
By the way, I donated to this project some time ago and got the invitations and all the hipe over the past couple of months. Unfortunately, I opened up a letter the other day and found a bunch of address labels and plea for a donation as if I never donated in the first place. Gen. Christmas had better see to it that his database isn't screwed up. I was offended by this. For those of you who attend, all I can say is "God bless!"

GySgtRet
05-30-06, 09:02 PM
I understand when you say it will be a madhouse up here, it always is it will just be a little worse maybe by 10 times as bad. I had the memmbership stuff probably like you did a couple of years ago too. Its too bad that the Marine Corps couldn't do something for Marines that are from out of town for lodging. I guess I am just lucky this time and I live about 10 miles from the museum.

Semper fi

marinegreen
06-01-06, 03:00 AM
I'm hoping and looking forward to attend, looks like it will be an awesome event.For those who want to donate go to Marine hearitage museum,dig into your pockets and contribute and or by a brick.


MCLeague
Sr. Vice Commandant
Mid-Ia. Det

:flag:

GySgtRet
06-07-06, 11:28 AM
I just got off of the phone with the Marine Corps Heritage Musem a few minutes ago. The entire parking lot at the Musem will be used for chairs for the Dedication of the Musem. There will be no parking avaiable at all. The 10 November date coinsides with Veterna's Day this year and will be a National Holiday so normal metro work traffic ashould be at a minimum. The plan is for D C METRO and the Viginia DMV to have shuttles setup to take you from communter lots to take you to and from the Dedication Ceremony. If there are more updates for the dedication I will post it when I get it.

Semper Fidelis

GySgtRet
06-07-06, 04:02 PM
for a little while. I have an update on this for you Marines interested in going to the dedication...

Semper Fi

gwladgarwr
06-15-06, 01:33 PM
Got my reservations - thanks, Gunny!:flag:

GySgtRet
06-15-06, 01:49 PM
Glad that I could help you Marine. Have you read about how parking will be for that day? I posted it lastweek when I found out about it. More details will follow soon I hope.

Semper Fi

thedrifter
06-16-06, 06:37 AM
Museum To Show What It's Like To Be One Of Few, Proud
Washington Times
June 15, 2006

By Nathan Bomey, The Washington Times

The piercing voice of a drill instructor and the jarring sound of bullets will give visitors to the National Museum of the Marine Corps a unique perspective on what it is like to be a Marine.

The 118,000-square-foot museum near Quantico, Va., a towering complex whose architectural design resembles the famous image of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, will immerse visitors in the culture of the storied military branch.

The facility at 18000 Jefferson Davis Highway is on track to open to the public Nov. 13, officials said yesterday. The grand-opening ceremony is scheduled for Nov. 10, the 231st anniversary of the Marine Corps.

Visitors will experience a simulated boot camp and combat zones. Museum officials determined through research that visitors wanted experiential exhibits.

"Interactive technology seemed to be the overarching desire of visitors as opposed to the traditional experience of going into a building and looking at things through glass," said retired Col. Raymond Hord, vice president for development and marketing of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, which is providing financial support for the museum.

Retired Col. Joseph Long, the museum's deputy director, said the facility will feature about 5,000 artifacts and several exhibits designed to give visitors a taste of life as a Marine. The museum, which has been under construction for more than two years, eventually might expand to 181,000 square feet.

One display will show the two flags raised at Iwo Jima. The flags will be rotated to prevent wear and tear.

Three galleries featuring World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War will be designed to help visitors understand the experience of a combat zone. In the Vietnam gallery, for example, visitors will walk off the back of a helicopter into a simulated "hot landing zone," where they will get the sensation of bullets whizzing past and imminent danger.

"We're just re-creating that experience as best as we possibly can," Col. Long said.

One of the main features of the museum is its simulated boot camp. The exhibit will feature a live drill instructor, who will scream at visitors and demand obedience.

The museum aims to educate visitors about why the Marines use such intense training tactics. "It's not because they're mean," Col. Long said.

The facility is designed as the centerpiece of the Marine Corps Heritage Center, which also is home to artifact restoration and storage facilities, a conference center and a hotel.

Prince William County donated 135 acres for the museum.

Most of the 60,000 artifacts in the collection were taken from the battlefield. The aircraft, weapons and equipment are authentic.

"All of the artifacts are the real things," Col. Hord said. "None of them are reproductions."

Admission will be free. The museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Christmas.

Ellie

Phantom Blooper
07-12-06, 04:55 PM
http://mcamarines/dm.gif?v=86&amp;vst=1&amp;id=859958_1152741095296&amp;url=http %3A//www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/Story2July.htm&amp;ref=http%3A//p081.ezboard.com/fbeirutveteransofamericafrm2.showMessage%3FtopicID ...

GySgtRet
07-12-06, 05:08 PM
Thanks for the updates it was definately needed. You should see what it looks like these days. I go by it everyday twice when I go to work. The exterior scafolding is now gone. The route 1 work is in full swing to get the entrance done on time. It is causing a few traffic problems because it is about 200 yards more or less from the maingate at Quantico. It is an impressive site and can be seen either north or south bound from I-95.

I hope to see a lot of you Marines there if you can make it.

CAS3
07-13-06, 03:07 AM
Ed, How much are you charging for boarders...I moved out of Aquia a little too soon!!

CAS3
07-19-06, 01:15 AM
Marine museum advances
Featured Advertiser





The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico is under construction and is scheduled to open in November. A grand central gallery, or the Leatherneck Gallery, houses several airplanes, the highest hanging about 75 feet above the floor.
Photos by SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR





Sabastian Martorann (left) and his wife, Amanda, paint in letters carved out of marble in the entrance hall at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Exhibits and equipment are being installed.
Photos by SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR





The main entrance and promenade will greet visitors to the National Museum of the Marine Corps, which is slated to open in November. The museum will feature interactive and immersion exhibits.
Photos by SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR





The top of the new National Museum of the Marine Corps represents the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima.
Photos by SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR







Update on the National Museum of the Marine Corps

Date published: 7/19/2006


By JENN ROWELL

Stepping into the main gallery, a visitor's eyes are drawn skyward.

Authentic war planes, with lifelike figures in the cockpit, fill the 210-foot Leatherneck Gallery.

"This is gonna be fun," said retired Marine Col. Ray Hord. "This is not just a stodgy old place to look at things behind glass."

Hord is vice president of development and marketing with the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and yesterday led a tour of the National Museum of the Marine Corps going up off Interstate 95 at the Quantico Marine Corps Base.

Construction of the exterior is complete along with the spire that is meant to symbolize the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. Exhibits and audio visual equipment are now being installed.

The museum is scheduled to be dedicated Nov. 10 and will open to the public Nov. 12.

Yesterday, he briefed members of the media on the museums offerings, which will feature interactive and immersion exhibits.

When the museum opens, visitors can catch a 12-minute orientation video about what to expect as they explore the exhibits. After watching the video, the experience begins.

The first exhibit will provide a glimpse of reality for one considering joining the Marines. When completed, automated drill sergeants will bark out orders and direct visitors through the stations.

An interactive igloo will let you stand at attention and experience inspection day to find out "just how many things are wrong with you," Hord said.

Visitors will also be able to test their marksman skills on the range by taking aim at the target with a laser rifle.

Admission to the museum is free, but the rifle range and air craft simulations will cost visitors a fee that supports museum operations.

Visitors short on time will be able to peruse Legacy Walk, a corridor lined with artifacts and audiovisual presentations that give a swift, but thorough history of the Marine Corps.

But, for those who can spend the entire day, there will be galleries dedicated to World War II, Korea and Vietnam. These eras were chosen, Hord said, because "they represent the living veteran constituency that made that history."

A vintage Japanese kamikaze plane marks the entrance to the World War II gallery.

Once inside, visitors will hear a recording of Franklin D. Roosevelt's radio address about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Visitors will experience the landing at Iwo Jima in 1945 when they stand on a raft on rollers with actual battle footage playing.

"What we're trying to do is get the blood rushing a bit," Hord said. "You're actually there, you're participating in the landing in February 1945."

Just down the hall, visitors can experience what a Marine division was up against at Chosin Reservoir in 1950 during the Korean War.

Once the exhibit is complete, the room will be kept at 58 degrees, an attempt to re-create--a tad more comfortably--the day the division found itself surrounded by 50,000 of the enemy and the only way out was by narrow and rocky roads in freezing temperatures.

Jumping ahead to 1968, visitors will find themselves in a CH-46 helicopter at the Battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam. This exhibit will be kept at 88 degrees with high humidity to give a sense of the jungle conditions.

The museum will be an important stop for veterans and active duty Marines, Hord said, but it will also be a "national level museum for the country, not just the Marine Corps."




To reach JENN ROWELL: 540/374-5000, ext. 5617
Email: jrowell@freelancestar.com

Date published: 7/19/2006

ringoffire
07-22-06, 06:19 PM
Well, I hope someone will be posting some good pictures. The Husband will be going to California next month for 3 months of school, He won't be back until Thanksgiving. We wont be able to go, I already emailed the museum, so they wont send us our tickets. BUMMER...I was looking forward to going.

thedrifter
07-30-06, 10:21 AM
The essence of being a Marine <br />
MARK HOLMBERG <br />
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST <br />
Sunday, July 30, 2006 <br />
<br />
<br />
QUANTICO Only the U.S. Marine Corps would sort of cast aspersions on their mothers in foot-high...

GySgtRet
07-30-06, 10:54 AM
I went to my second session along with about 150 others ranging from dependent wives to former Marines to even Army Air Force and Navy people. They are all as equalliy enthused about the Marine Corps Museum. The road (route 1) adjacent to the museum and the road that goes in front of the main gate at Qunatico is just about finished. Boy it makes for a lot of problems commuting everyday but that will soon be over. In a few short weeks we will be going to the museum every Saturday till it opens. November 10 is not very far away and we are ahead of schedule. The opening day is probably going to wind up being day crew stay crew till the next day which is Veteran's Day. I don't mind having the duty if I get chosen.

Please I want you all to be aware that parking will not be provided on the opening day or days after that until the museum is opened for regular tours. This opening day there will be parking and schuttle service from metro parking lots in the area, since this is going to be a National Holiday in observance for Veteran's day

Bless you all and The United States Marine Corps

fontman
07-31-06, 08:39 AM
Next Exit Marine Land
Along I-95, a New Military Museum Goes Up -- And Up

By Philip Kennicott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 31, 2006; C01

They've turned on the air conditioning inside the new National Museum of the Marine Corps, and they've hung fighter planes from the massive girders that poke above the skyline as you drive along Interstate 95 past Quantico. Although it won't open to the public until Nov. 10, the shell of the building and the distinctive 210-foot mast and sail-like glass structure that tops it-- are already attracting notice from passersby. Inside, it's still very much a work zone.

If you build a house near an interstate, you usually do everything you can to deny the presence of the roaring asphalt monster in your back yard. But build a church or a corporate headquarters or a museum, and there's a risky though understandable impulse to be seen, to tease a little curiosity out of the car-encased audience speeding by at 75 miles an hour. Buildings in view of interstates (think of the Mormon Temple on the Beltway) often feel steroidal. They must be big to be seen over the trees and the traffic, and they're often flashy so that the basic idea can be absorbed quickly.

Architecture follows the logic of the billboard, and not often to its artistic advantage.

The sloping metal peak of the new Marine Corps Museum isn't just an eye-catcher from the roadway, however. It is, according to the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, which will run the site (a public-private venture with the Marines), an iconic shape inspired by the famous photograph of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi during the bloody World War II battle for Iwo Jima. And sure enough, you can see the inspiration clearly in a logo for the new museum, which shows the famous cluster of Marines with the new building's peaked top superimposed over them. Soaring above a round base, a bold "mast" parallels the line of the flagpole they struggled to raise on difficult terrain.

It's tempting, in the sloppy jargon of architecture-speak, to call this sort of thing an "echo." In an effort, perhaps, to assuage the age-old fear of juxtaposing new and old, architectural rhetoric makes of our cities an endless echo chamber. In Washington, the Kennedy Center echoes the Lincoln Memorial; and innumerable dull office buildings, with a few classical elements slapped on, echo the older, more imposing and more interesting architecture of the early federal city.

There is, perhaps, a sequence of echoes in the new Marine museum. The building echoes the famous Marine Memorial statue in Arlington, which echoes the black-and-white photograph of the event, which was itself an echo of sorts, a restaging of an earlier flag-raising on the hill that was not quite so visually dramatic.

The problem with this metaphor is that echoes, by definition, get smaller and softer through their iterations, while the flag-raising icon only gets bigger. The original photograph was cropped to make the soldiers more prominent. They became yet more impressive when cast into huge bronze figures, and are more impressive still now that their basic outline has been repeated in a soaring monumental space.

But it is a strange echo that only gets larger. In fact, the new museum is the most recent result of an effort to concentrate and increase the power of the original image, an effort that parallels historical trends since the Second World War. Since then, the meaning of American wars has generally grown murkier, and American opinion more divided on the rightness of subsequent conflicts. And the military has become an all-volunteer force. In an age of ambivalence, the military needs powerful icons for recruitment, especially since 2001 when joining the forces brings with it the very distinct likelihood of getting shot at.

Architecturally, the glass and metal structure rising above I-95 is a kind of "recruitment" for visitors, drawing them off the highway and into the museum (admission is free). Once in, the visitor is in the marble-clad "Leatherneck Gallery," a round, solemn space with some spicy quotations carved on the walls ("Come on you sons of *****es, do you want to live forever?" is one, attributed to 1st Sgt. Dan Daly). It would be a stronger space if not quite so cluttered with particular details meant to ensure the visitor that this isn't just any old modernist space, but very particularly a "Marine" space. There are planes and a helicopter, and a ship's tower, made from military metal sheeting. Portholes ring the gallery, with low benches beneath them.

Museum leaders describe the building as a large, inspirational center ring, with gallery spaces that are meant to be "immersive" and filled with multimedia offerings (one exhibit will give visitors the sounds and sights of a beach landing). The visitor files through exhibitions devoted to different wars, and to what it's like to join and train with the Marines. The Holocaust Museum in Washington may have been an inspiration for some elements of the new museum's design (by Fentress Bradburn Architects, a Denver-based firm), though the Marine museum is even more starkly divided between its center, contemplative space and surrounding exhibition areas.

"Immersive" is the reigning buzzword for museums these days (think of the Spy Museum), and the trend away from objects and education and toward narratives and dramatization can clearly be seen in the shape of this new building. Once you leave the Leatherneck Gallery you really have no clear sense of the building's shape, dimensions or layout.

To make an immersion museum, you need "immersive space," which is essentially horizontal, theatrical space, where you can control lighting and sound effects. You need to enclose and control movement so as to build a narrative and generate curiosity and excitement. Immersive space isn't storage space, or traditional gallery space with objects, but rather a collection of dramatic tunnels.

The problem is that immersion space isn't inspiring architecturally, hence the need here for that soaring vaulted, sloping domelike thing, sitting like a cap on what is otherwise essentially a warehouse built into a hill. This may be the biggest challenge for today's museum architects: How do you make impressive buildings that must function like small amusement parks or a Halloween haunted house?

An even larger question is whether the trend toward immersive museums is a lasting one. They can be a great deal of fun, especially with children in tow, but the sense, after going through them, is that you've seen the show . Perhaps you'll see it two or three more times, but ultimately having seen a show is a very different experience from that of most traditional museums, which is more like going to a library. You'll always have a reason to go back to the library, because its resources are only as exhaustible as your curiosity. But how many times will you rent "Full Metal Jacket" or "The Sands of Iwo Jima"? The only way to solve the problem of the "been there, done that" museum is to build a lot of them and build them big.

Implicit in that last paragraph is the rift, in our culture, between the economics and aesthetics of a widely populist approach, and the more narrowly defined (often dubbed "elitist") economics and aesthetics of old-guard cultural institutions. The new Marine museum is very much in the former camp. What's fascinating, from an architectural perspective, is how that plays out in design.

One last detail, worth noting: The entrance to the museum is framed by two long concrete walls, opening like radiating spokes from the round central gallery.

Seen from above, they look like jaws, an open maw, ready to greet and process and disgorge visitors at a rate the Textile Museum could only dream of (in a millennium of Sundays). The building, when it opens, will have 118,000 square feet, with an expandable design that will bring it, at some point, to 181,000, including an Imax theater. They expect 200,000 to 600,000 visitors a year.

This is a museum about volume, energy and speed, rather like the highway it overlooks. Some people look at superhighways and see excitement, mobility and freedom. Others see anxiety, restlessness and urgency. It is the last of these, urgency, that one feels most strongly in the architecture of the Marine museum. This is an expanding country, a diversifying country, and a country that is essentially failing in the project of teaching its citizens fundamental lessons of history, democracy and the vulnerabilities of democracy. This building is put together to bring people out of their private space, in huge numbers, to teach them a little, very quickly, about the cost of liberty (and maybe the dangers of empire).

thedrifter
08-18-06, 06:23 AM
Roles cast for Marines

By Ayla Kremen
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 18, 2006


The Marine Corps' legendary training could not prepare Lt. Col. Scott Yost for this task: posing for hours while a plaster mold of his body was created for the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
"It's definitely not for someone who is claustrophobic," said Col. Yost, who has served in the Marine Corps for 26 years. "I thought it would be very interesting. I always enjoy trying new experiences, and I figured this was going to be something that would be really fun."
Col. Yost's mold will be among 62 life-size figures on display at the museum, set to open Nov. 13 near the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.
The 230,000-square-foot museum will highlight key events and pay tribute to the Marines' contribution to U.S. history. The figures are intended to make the exhibits more realistic. Installation throughout the museum began this week.
Several steps were involved in the four-hour process in the past few months to create the molds.
First, alginate was poured over the hands and faces of the models, who had to hold the expressions of their characters for about 45 minutes.
"My character was a helicopter pilot in the Korean War," Col. Yost said. "And at that time, helicopters were dicey at best, so I had to have a look of deep concentration."
Then the models were posed and their entire bodies were covered in medical gauze and plaster.
"It was as if I had broken every bone in my body," Col. Yost said.
He hopes to see his figure today.
"I'm very excited," Col. Yost said. "I think it's great. Not only do I work at the museum, but now I'm going to have a representation of me living in the museum for as long as it's around."
Another model, Gunnery Sgt. Nelson Francisco, said, "I don't know how I'm going to feel about [seeing my figure]."
He posed grabbing a flagpole while watching a plane land for an exhibit that he thinks will represent the Nicaraguan war.
"My wife didn't want to believe it," Sgt. Francisco said. "I still don't think she believes me. When she sees the museum, she might believe it then."


Ellie

thedrifter
08-18-06, 06:34 AM
Model Marines I
August 18, 2006 12:50 am

By JENN ROWELL

T'S ABOUT THE LEGACY.

"Everybody always looks for some sort of legacy, something that they did," Lt. Col. Scott Yost said. "I'll always be able to tell my kids that this was something I was involved with and hey, look, there's the proof."

Yost was one of about 75 Marines from Quantico Marine Corps Base who modeled for the lifelike cast figures that are being installed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps this week.

Slated to be dedicated Nov. 10 and open to the public on Nov. 12, the museum is going up just off Interstate 95 near the base.

With an exterior design inspired by the flag raising at Iwo Jima, the interior is meant to carry on the legacy of the 231-year-old branch of the armed services.

"This museum is here to tell the story of the United States Marines from the beginning to today," retired Gunnery Sgt. Tom Williams said. "The history was made by people."

And the museum does tell that story.

One cast figure wears a blood-stained parka that was worn by a Marine in battle and was donated to the museum.

At first glance, the figures in each of the exhibits look as though they might move at any second.

To create the cast figures, Marines posed and were covered with plaster for three to four hours while artists worked.

An algae product called alginate was used to cast the Marines' heads and a medical-grade plaster bandage was used to cast the rest of their bodies, B.J. Ervick of Studio EIS in Brooklyn said. About 15 people from his company spent the past year producing the 62 figures, which were hauled from Brooklyn in two 18-wheeler trucks earlier this week and join the figures already positioned in the authentic aircraft suspended throughout the building.

Yost modeled for his cast last August before he was sent back to Iraq. When he returned, his figure was already placed in the pilot seat of a helicopter in the main gallery, and he hasn't been able to see it yet.

He'd been working for the museum before he left and came back to land the job of operations manager.

"If I can't be out leading Marines, then there's no where else I'd rather be," he said. "I love coming here, it just blows me away every time I come in this place."

To reach JENN ROWELL: 540/374-5000, ext. 5617
Email: jrowell@freelancestar.com

Ellie

thedrifter
08-20-06, 07:23 AM
Marines got a few good bodies
BY PETER BACQU?
Media General News Service
Sunday, August 20, 2006


When the Marines called for volunteers last year, Lt. Col. Scott Yost offered his body for the Corps.

Yost's face and physique provided the mold to make one of 73 cast-from-life mannequins installed this week in the new National Museum of the Marine Corps here.

Now the logistics officer is immortalized - however anonymously - portraying the pilot of a Korean War helicopter.

"They put you in boxer shorts and cover you head to toe in Vaseline," he said, "which, in and of itself, is worth the price of admission."

The Marines and civilian volunteers were then wrapped in medical-grade plaster bandages. "It's like you've broken your entire body," said Yost, who is the museum's operations officer.

The models were posed in the position their museum figure would assume, Iraq War veteran Yost said, which required standing - or squatting or kneeling - still for 45 minutes to an hour.

"You cannot be claustrophobic when you do this," he said.

In discussions with other leading historical institutions, the Marines learned that "the museum experience has to make the exhibits come alive," said retired Col. Raymond A. Hord with the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

Sculpted from urethane foam, plaster, epoxy and even auto body filler - each with its own expression, its own personality - the figures will fight, suffer, endure and triumph in combat tableaux, historical scenes and Marine aircraft at the 118,000-square-foot building.

Planned for an opening this November, the museum's almost $90-million first phase focuses on World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam wars "to honor our living veteran constituency," Hord said.

The nonprofit Marine Corps Heritage Foundation has raised $57 million from private donors to construct the museum, with the Marine Corps putting up an additional $30 million to build the exhibits and furnish the museum.

J. Stewart Bryan III, chairman of the board of Media General Inc., is a member of the foundation's volunteer leadership board, and Media General, the parent company of the Times-Dispatch, is one of the foundation's corporate sponsors.

"This museum is here to tell the story of the United States Marine," said retired Marine Gunnery Sgt. Tom Williams, a consultant with the nonprofit Marine Corps Historical Company. "It's about the people."

Williams found himself cast as one of that long line of Leathernecks, a Continental Marine in the American Revolutionary War, firing a musket from the fighting top of a sailing man-o'-war.

Briefed with the figures' stories and the emotions the designers wanted to convey, Sgt. David Peterson lent himself to two figures, a rifleman and a Marine rappelling out of a helicopter.

Despite the obvious tediousness of the task, "I volunteered for it," said the 26-year-old sergeant.

"I am Lt. Lopez going over the wall at Inchon and I am a World War I captain fighting with the Germans," said Staff Sgt. Steven Sullivan, who teaches Marine Corps history.

"It was a real thrill to work with Marines on this," said B. J. Ervick, production manager with StudioEIS, the firm making the exhibit figures. "Everything is, like, 100 percent."

While other museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, have used specially molded human figures to breathe life into history, Ervick said, "By far, this is going to be No. 1."

Marines have a reputation among the U.S. armed services for never discarding any materiel they might be able to use some day.

The museum is no different.

Castoff body parts from the mannequins, said museum curator Robert J. Sullivan, a historian and retired Marine lieutenant colonel, will find a second life in combat scenes showing war's ugly reality.

Said Yost, "We don't do subtle here."

Ellie

thedrifter
08-25-06, 10:04 PM
Marines..

I would start checking to see if You are going...
Notifications are going out ... ;)

We got OURS...and so did our daughter Pam

Ellie

thedrifter
08-26-06, 06:29 AM
MANCHIN REPORT:Calling all Marines to Get Involved with National Museum

By Gov. Joe Manchin

Charleston, WV (HNN)--Recently, I announced that I would be joining other governors across the nation and the National Marines Heritage Foundation to try and locate every man and woman who is presently serving or has served in the United States Marine Corps. This educational campaign aims to inform Marines and their families of the new National Museum of the Marine Corps and to involve them in shaping the museum and telling the history of the corps.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps will be dedicated in Quantico, Virginia this November. This museum will tell the story of the Marine Corps "through the eyes of Marines" - bringing visitors to the front lines with combat simulators, historic footage and authentic articles, such as firearms and uniforms.

To become involved in this important endeavor, I am urging all active and former United States Marines to go online at www.wvgov.org , click the West Virginia Marine Corp info icon and register. In two weeks, my office has received more than 100 Marines’ contact information and their stories. Every soldier has a story, and it is truly amazing to read some of these descriptive accounts of what happened to our fellow West Virginians during their service.

If you do not have internet access and would like to register, feel free to contact the West Virginia liaison to the National Museum, Lieutenant Colonel Joe E. Miller (USMC, Ret) of Hurricane at 304-562-6998. I appointed Joe to help with this venture, and he is truly working hard with the museum and with his fellow West Virginians to make this effort a success. Joe has organized a committee made up of Marines from across the state, including: Woody Williams, Cabell County; Sam Baldwin, Wood County; Randall Bare, Jackson County; Fred Karnes, Cabell County; D.J. Turley, Wayne County; Bill Nelson, Randolph County; Scottie King, Cabell County; Eugene Ashe, Raleigh County; Dorothy Alderman, Kanawha County; Ron Wroblewski, Wayne County; Gareth Smith, Jackson County; Miles Epling, Jackson County; Frank Armentrout, Kanawha County; Al “Rick” Given, Kanawha County; Roger Ware, Randolph County; and, Mike McLain, Wood County. I thank all of these Marines for giving their time and energy to this noble cause.

This museum will be special not only for Marines and their families, but for all Americans. Not to mention that West Virginia has historically had one of the nation’s highest military service rates per capita, so this project has particular significance in the Mountain State.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps is a public-private venture between the United States Marine Corps and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. The information that Marines and their families are so kind enough to share is also forwarded to the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation for use in the development of the national museum. Please visit the foundation’s Web site at www.usmcmuseum.org for further information.

Ellie

dougstratton
09-11-06, 03:06 AM
What a fantastic project. Thank you, Ed, for telling us about this, and for all your work volunteering to help at the Museum.

We hope to return to DC from the UK as soon as we can, and we shall definitely make the trip down to Quantico to visit the Museum. I would love to be there on November 10, 11, 12 but doubt we can make it that soon -- and, to be fair, Marines should get first priority. When there's some space for civilians and foreigners, we'll be first in line!

Semper Fi.

booksbenji
10-08-06, 04:30 PM
I was honored to be commissioned to build a replica of the flag raising at Iwo Jima for permanent installation at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Using Joe Rosenthal's famous photograph as inspiration, I sculpted the five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. The sculpture used over 100,000 LEGO bricks.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps will be a state-of-the-art institution that will honor all Marines and share their stories with the American public through remarkable interactive displays. It is scheduled to open in November 2006 and is located in Quantico, Virginia.

Source:http://www.brickartist.com/iwo_jima_replica.html

http://www.brickartist.com/gallery/Iwo-Jima-12.jpg

MASTER-GUNS
10-09-06, 07:43 PM
We plan to attend in mid December on our way to Florida. The auto train depot is just north f there so we plan to spend at least one day there and then prceed on our trip.

thedrifter
10-31-06, 05:50 AM
Marines museum tries to take you into war zones <br />
<br />
Barbara Barrett, Washington Correspondent <br />
<br />
QUANTICO, VA. - Lance Cpl. Matthew Stephens, who returned to Camp Lejeune from Iraq just last month,...

thedrifter
10-31-06, 03:54 PM
Posted on Tue, Oct. 31, 2006 <br />
Marine Corps museum seeks to take visitors inside battle zone <br />
<br />
By Barbara Barrett <br />
<br />
McClatchy Newspapers <br />
<br />
(MCT) <br />
<br />
QUANTICO, Va. - Lance Cpl. Matthew Stephens,...

thedrifter
11-04-06, 05:24 AM
National Museum of the Marine Corps opens Nov. 13

By Beth Zimmerman
Staff writer

The Corps’ birthday falls on a Friday this year. But the opportunity to celebrate 231 years of history extends into the following week with the Nov. 13 opening of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

The 10,000-square-foot museum will be dedicated Nov. 10, with every living Marine commandant scheduled to attend. Touted as a lasting tribute to Marines of the past, present and future on the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s Web site, the museum opens to the public Nov. 13 at 9 a.m. following a brief ceremony, and will be open daily, except Christmas Day.

The museum is designed to tell “America’s story through the eyes of Marines,” a Nov. 3 Marine Corps release said. Its sloping top, evoking the famous second flag-raising on Iwo Jima, can be seen easily from its home on Jefferson Davis Highway near Quantico, Va., by drivers traveling on Interstate 95.

Retired Maj. Gen. Donald Gardner, president of Marine Corps University, will host the opening ceremony, before visitors are challenged by the engraving above the museum’s entrance to “enter and experience what it means to be a Marine.”

See the Nov. 13 issue of Marine Corps Times for our four-page mega-preview on the museum

www.marineheritage.org/Programs_museum.asp

Ellie

thedrifter
11-05-06, 06:45 PM
National Museum tells Marines' stories <br />
NATIONAL MUSEUM of the MARINE CORPS, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA <br />
By JULIA LeDOUX <br />
jledoux@potomacnews.com <br />
Sunday, November 5, 2006 <br />
<br />
&quot;And they live tradition; the...

thedrifter
11-05-06, 06:47 PM
Veterans traveling from all over for museum's dedication
NATIONAL MUSEUM of the MARINE CORPS, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
By AILEEN M. STRENG
astreng@potomacnews.com
Sunday, November 5, 2006

The dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps will coincide just about to the day that Orson Swindle of Alexandria was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War.

Swindle will be among the estimated 15,000 Marines, retired and active duty, invited guests and the president of the United States who will attend Friday's event.

"It will be special being around some friends who are there and being there for some friends that aren't around anymore," Swindle said.

As a Marine aviator, Swindle flew 205 combat missions during the Vietnam War. On what was to be his last mission on Nov. 11, 1966, he was shot down over North Vietnam. He was a prisoner of war for six years and four days.

Even though the 40th anniversary of Swindle's capture is approaching, he is not focusing on it as much as he is remembering all of his experiences as a Marine. He retired from the Corps in 1979 as a lieutenant colonel.

The dedication will coincide with the 231st anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps.

"The Marine Corps Birthday brings back many memories, memories not so much in a historic sense, but memories of people you got to know, be it through boot camp, or The Basic School or flight school or your squadron or going to Vietnam or fighting and flying," Swindle said.

"To be there on this occasion will be wonderful. I will be there for my father," he said. Swindle's father was also a Marine and took part in the battle for Iwo Jima during World War II.

The battle for Iwo Jima represented a pivotal moment in the war and the raising of the American flag there became an iconic symbol for the Corps. As such, the flagraising was the inspiration for the design of the new museum with its 210-foot tall mast.

Swindle said he believes it's appropriate that much of the museum's focus is on Iwo Jima and the Marines who fought there.

A few years ago Swindle spoke at an Iwo Jima survivors reunion. "They were all just incredibly wonderful gentlemen," Swindle said. "There was a sophistication and dignity about the group that I don't think I've seen in a anywhere. They are very special people."

Many of those World War II veterans, including those who fought on Iwo Jima, will be attending the dedication events.

Among those World War II veterans will be 94-year-old Joseph Brinkley, who will be traveling from Jacksonville, Fla., to attend.

Brinkley enlisted in the Marine Corps and fought in the South Pacific during the war. He stayed on and retired as a captain in 1959 from the Quantico base.

"I want to come to the dedication for many reasons," Brinkley said from his Florida home. "I'm very excited about it."

Brinkley said he is looking forward to visiting the Quantico base where he had been stationed four times, seeing the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C., as well as spending time with his daughter Janice Ferlazzo of Lake Ridge.

"It's going to be wonderful," Brinkley said.

"The museum is about remembering. One of the great things about Marines is that they remember. It's that camaraderie that makes the Marine Corps unique," said Swindle.

Marines throughout the country as well as within Prince William County are looking forward to the museum's opening.

"It's a great memorial to the past, present and future of the Marine Corps," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Mike Janay of Brentsville, who also served in Vietnam.

Once open to the public, Janay said, "Marines are going to come. Families of Marines are going to come and people who are curious about the whole persona of the Marine Corps are going to come."

Janay has been involved in the building of the museum, serving on the special projects committee of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. The foundation is the non-profit organization that raised more than $60 million to build the museum.

While Janay has chosen not to attend this weekend's dedication events, he did attend a preview event in October with one of his two sons, who are both active duty Marine aviators.

"I think it's a honor that Quantico was chosen for the location of the museum," Janay said. "Quantico is the crossroads of the Corps."

Janay also praised the volunteer docents. "They are there because they want to be there. To them, it is not a job," he said.

One of those docents is Woodbridge resident and retired Marine Maj. Bill Peters, also a Vietnam veteran. Peters will help lead tours over the dedication weekend.

"We've been told that this can be a very emotional experience for people and I can understand that," Peters said.

He has been through the museum many times but vividly remembers the first time, especially the first time he saw the Vietnam War-era gallery that focuses on the 1968 Khe Sanh siege.

"Luckily, I was by myself because as soon as I saw it, I started shaking," Peters said. "It really just threw me off."

Peters said he decided to become a volunteer because he loves the Marine Corps.

"We're called 'the first to fight' and our history bears it out. I think the Marines' story needs to be told," he said. "[Some people] have no concept of what we've done over the years."

"Marines consider themselves to be cut from a special bolt of cloth," said recently retired Marine Lt. Col. Jeff Speights of Stafford. "Even after they retire, there is a strong connection."

That connection also drew Speights to volunteer as a museum docent. He looks forward to seeing the reactions, particularly those of the Marine visitors to the museum.

"I want to see the looks on their faces when they see it and hear the stories," Speights said. "It will continue to foster the connection.

"The museum is a way to tell the country's history through the Marine Corps' eyes," he said. "And, it's a way to honor those who have served, whether you were in four years or 40 years."

"We've looked forward to this for many years and have supported it wholeheartedly," said retired Marine Maj. Rick Spooner, owner of the Globe and Laurel restaurant in Triangle, an institution for Marines and the Quantico-based FBI Academy for 38 years.

"It's going to be wonderful," Spooner said. "It's something every Marine past and present will be really proud of. It's extremely well done and the American people will be proud of it too."

Staff writer Aileen Streng can be reached at (703) 878-8010.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-05-06, 06:48 PM
Museum design inspired by Iwo Jima flagraisers
NATIONAL MUSEUM of the MARINE CORPS, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
By JULIA LeDOUX
jledoux@potomacnews.com
Sunday, November 5, 2006

The design of the National Museum of the United States Marine Corps brings to mind many symbols.

The tilt of its 210-foot mast recalls the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C.; a bayoneted rifle; a howitzer; an aircraft that is landing; and a sword drawn from its sheath.

But principal architect Bryan Chaffee of Fentress Bradburn Architects said it was the sense of strength embodied by the flagraisers at Iwo Jima that sparked the initial design.

"That was really the inspiration behind the design," he said. That vision eventually evolved into the mast that soars at a 45-degree angle from a 160-foot high glass atrium that defines the structure itself.

"We tried to find an idea, a new symbol, fitting for the history of the Marines," said museum architect Curt Fentress. "It's a very important place to hold their treasures."

The Denver-based firm was selected by the Marine Corps and the Department of the Navy's Engineering Field Activity Chesapeake in July 2001 to design the $40 million, 118,000-square foot facility adjacent to the Quantico Marine Corps base. The facility will be dedicated on Friday and opens to the public on Monday.

"We've been really working since 2000 [when the initial design solicitation was sent out] on the architecture," Chaffee continued. A team of 30 to 40 architects worked on the plans and designs over the course of the project.

"It certainly takes a team effort," Chaffee continued. "It is clearly not a design that you've seen before."

The designers completed numerous drawings as the museum's final design took shape.

"There were five of us who would brainstorm ideas. We'd get together once a day, with everyone developing a new scheme," Chaffee continued. "We also built a lot of physical models."

Fentress said the team also looked at many images of Marines from the Revolutionary War to the present as they worked.

"It's going to memorialize a lot of the Marines' history," he said.

Chaffee and primary exhibit designers Chris Chadbourne and Bil Ruggieri of Christopher Chadbourne and Associates even immersed themselves in the culture of the Marine Corps as they developed the facility.

The men were on a bus with a group of recruits in San Diego as they began their journey toward earning the title of Marine.

"We actually participated in the first five minutes of boot camp," Chaffee said. "We jumped off the bus with them and got on the yellow footprints."

Fentress and Ruggieri also visited Belleau Wood in France, Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan and Tinian.

The trio also watched recruits at swim qualifications, on the rifle range and at the Crucible, the final test recruits must pass before graduating from boot camp.

"We spent a week observing," he said.

Chaffee also spent about four days aboard the USS Nassau off the coast of Norfolk, which inspired the observation tower in the museum's Leatherneck Gallery.

"I spent a lot of time looking at its architecture and superstructure," he said.

Both Fentress and Chaffee said what they learned about Marine Corps history and their indoctrination to the Corps assisted them in their ability to capture what it means to be a Marine.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-05-06, 06:50 PM
Museum dedication, influx of visitors will cause traffic delays
NATIONAL MUSEUM of the MARINE CORPS, QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
By AILEEN M. STRENG
astreng@potomacnews.com
Sunday, November 5, 2006

Even those not attending the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps on Friday and throughout the weekend may feel the impact of ambitious events that could bring as many as 15,000 people to the Quantico area.

The High Occupancy Vehicle lanes will be closed on Friday and traffic around the Quantico area will be substantially increased.

Residents are warned that if they don't have to travel along U.S. 1 in the area -- especially on Friday -- they should avoid it.

Eastern Prince William County businesses also expect an impact, especially restaurants. It also may be difficult to find a motel room in the region and especially within the county because of the large number of guests coming from across the country.

Still, planners of the events hope that any negative impact will be as minimal as possible, said Liz Bahrns, Prince William County spokeswoman.

Prince William police will have more than 20 officers at the museum site to direct traffic for the dedication. Their numbers will fluctuate during the rest of the weekend depending on the scheduled events.

Also on hand for Friday's dedication will be 30 emergency responders from the Prince William Department of Fire and Rescue along with five volunteers and 18 members of the base fire and rescue department in the event they are needed. A first aid station will be set up at the museum.

Planners of the event estimated that many of those attending will be over the age of 60, since there is great interest in the museum among Marine veterans from World War II, Korea and the Vietnam War.

"We in the county deal with medical emergencies every day," Bahrns said. "They know what to do and how to handle a problem if it occurs."

Bahrns has been among the Marine, museum, county, state and federal officials who have been working on the logistics of the dedication weekend for more than a year.

"There are two groups of county residents who are going to be impacted -- those attending the events and those who are not," Bahrns said.

The official dedication, with President Bush will be held outside the museum on Friday.

The invited guests then will return on either Saturday or Sunday for tours of the museum. On Monday, another dedication ceremony will be held before the museum opens to the general public at 9 a.m.

"I think it's important that the community realizes that the [weekend] events are Marine Corps events," Bahrns said.

Still, there will be county residents -- active duty and retired Marines -- who will be attending. For logistical reasons, they too will have to abide by the parking restrictions, Bahrns said.

Since there is not adequate parking within the county for such a high number of visitors, they are being asked to park either at the Pentagon or at the Stafford airport and ride one of the more than 200 buses to the museum.

Since most of the visitors are expected to park at the Pentagon, Virginia State Police will close the HOV lanes along Interstate 95 so they can be used exclusively by the buses.

"If you are a county resident and you have to go to work on Friday then you will be impacted because the HOV lanes will be closed to regular commuter traffic," Bahrns said. "However, it is a federal holiday and that should take a lot of traffic off of 95."

The buses will be coming off I-95 onto Joplin Road and then to U.S. 1 where they will turn into the museum across from the Quantico Marine Corps base in the morning and then making return trips in the afternoons.

"If people don't need to be on [U.S.] 1 during those times, they should avoid it," Bahrns said. "If not, they need to expect delays in that area."

U.S. 1 will not be closed but police will be directing traffic, Bahrns said.

Area businesses such as the Globe and Laurel restaurant in Triangle, an institution for Marines and the FBI Academy for 38 years, may also feel an impact.

"It's very difficult to anticipate what will happen that weekend," said retired Maj. Rick Spooner, the restaurant's owner.

Since the estimated 15,000 guests will be bused to and from the events, they will not have their own transportation to visit local businesses and restaurants.

However, there may be others who may want to attend the events and may not be aware of the restrictions of the dedication, Spooner said.

"They may be wandering around the Dumfries/Triangle area and may come into some of the businesses," Spooner said.

Many of the visitors are already planning on staying at local and regional hotels.

"We've been sold out for that weekend since August," said Donald Rushing, manager of the Hampton Inn near Dumfries.

Addis Mekibib, who works at the front desk of the Days Inn near Dumfries, said she has been fielding a lot of calls from people checking room rates. While the motel still has some rooms available on Friday, as the dedication weekend nears, she said, "We're expecting to be busy."

Group rates for the weekend were arranged through the Heritage Foundation at 55 regional hotels from Fredericksburg to Washington, D.C. Those rooms also have been booked while other rooms may be available.

Once the museum opens to the public on Nov. 13, the economic boost is expected to continue. Museum officials have estimated that it will draw about 300,000 visitors each year.

"I really think it's going to generate a lot of tourist traffic. More than they estimated once the word is out nationwide. There will be tour buses going up there all the time," Spooner said.

Staff writer Aileen Streng can be reached at (703) 878-8010.

The Marine Corps will host several dedication events from Friday through Nov. 13. They are:

• Friday, Nov. 10 -- The official dedication -- with 15,000 invited guests including President Bush, Cabinet members, all living former Marine Corps commandants and Marine delegations from all 50 states, at 2 p.m.

• Saturday, Nov. 11 -- Group tours of the museum for invited guests will be conducted throughout the day, with a 5 p.m. ceremony to commemorate Veterans Day and dedicate the Semper Fidelis Park.

• Sunday, Nov. 12 -- Individual and family tours for invited guests will be conducted until noon.

• Monday, Nov. 13 -- A public dedication ceremony will be held at 8:40 a.m., and the museum will open to the public at 9 a.m.

Ellie

dougstratton
11-06-06, 03:13 AM
Ed, I just wanted to give you and your colleagues our best wishes for the opening ceremony later this week. Semper Fi from your buddies across the ocean!

As you already have a Veterans' Day in the USA, I don't know if you also have Armistice Day or not, which we in Europe hold on November 11th, being the date in 1918 when the Great War ended. We wear poppies, a symbol of the fields of Flanders. No doubt you all know this stuff because of Belleau Wood, but we'll be thinking of our American allies this week too, as our minds turn to those we lost.

GySgtRet
11-06-06, 04:14 AM
Thank you for everybody here in the United States and at the museum. Marines all over the earth will be celibrating the 231 st Birthday of our Corps this week and also Veteran's Day on the 11th.

thedrifter
11-06-06, 07:08 AM
State officials helping museum for Marines
Virginia site dedicated to Corps and its history opens Friday
By MIKE BILLINGTON, The News Journal
Posted Monday, November 6, 2006

From the halls of Montezuma to the dusty battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. Marines have fought, bled and died beneath the Stars and Stripes.

On Friday, the Corps will finally have a place to tell its many stories. The National Museum of the Marine Corps, adjacent to the base in Quantico, Va., opens its doors for the first time as the centerpiece of a 135-acre heritage center dedicated to the service's storied past and future missions.

Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner is a member of a special council of state chief executives from around the country who are working on a project to locate all current and former Marines. Each will have the opportunity to be included in the museum's Roll of Honor, Minner said.

"I am honored to be a part of the museum's Governors Council and look forward to engaging all Marines from Delaware in this project," she said.

Minner has appointed former Marine Eugene Bailey as the state's liaison to the museum. It will be his job to do the hands-on work of locating as many former and current Marines as possible, she said.

"The museum is a true national treasure that will share the history and lore of the Marines with all Americans," said retired Lt. Gen. Ron Christmas, president of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. "We look forward to continuing our work with Gov. Minner and the people of Delaware."

Minner has also asked state Sens. Harris B. McDowell, James T. Vaughn and George H. Bunting to be honorary co-chairmen of the Delaware committee supporting the museum's efforts. All three are former Marines.

"There are a lot of former Marines in Delaware, and I hope they will all take an interest in the museum," said Bunting, D-Bethany Beach and a Vietnam veteran. "I'm honored to be a part of this project because it's a very good thing."

Bunting, who is chairman the state Senate's veterans affairs committee, said he hopes current Marines as well as those who have recently left the Corps will register.

"These young men and women Marines of today are amazing," he said. "Their stories need to be told as well."

The museum will feature items from throughout the history of the Marine Corps, including aircraft, tanks, landing vehicles and artillery pieces, Christmas said.
Contact Mike Billington at 324-2761 or mbillington@delawareonline.com.

FYI

For more information about being included in the Roll of Honor at the National Museum of the Marine Corps or to register, visit www. portofwilmington.com/marines or call Gene Bailey at 472-7800. For more information about the museum, go to www.usmcmuseum.org.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-06-06, 09:29 AM
Posted on Mon, Nov. 06, 2006 <br />
<br />
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE MARINE CORPS | A lasting tribute <br />
Getting a taste of war <br />
Marines say that it’s impossible to re-create the experience of battle, but a new...

kato811
11-06-06, 07:58 PM
Does anyone know Lt General Christmas at the musem? he was my 1st C.O.

thedrifter
11-06-06, 08:20 PM
PIX"S

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=41296

Ellie

thedrifter
11-06-06, 08:27 PM
Museum to tell Corps' story
Donated items, interactive exhibits help convey Marine experience.
BY KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Sunday, November 5, 2006

QUANTICO Homer Zartman counts himself among those who helped build the National Museum of the Marine Corps' collection from the ground up.

The Surry County resident discovered a wealth of items after his father, a Marine who served in France during World War I, died in the early 1970s. He donated his father's garrison cap, binoculars, original-issue razor, uniform leggings, medals, ribbons, dog tags and more to the museum.

"It's a way to honor him, his memory and all the Marines that have fought in every war," said Zartman, 68, also a retired Marine. "Personally, it means a lot."

Jennifer Castro, the museum's collections manager, said individuals and families are responsible for a majority of items in the collection, which includes about 1,000 swords, 3,500 medals, 4,000 small-arms weapons, 20,000 uniforms and more.

"They are a big part of telling the story of the Marine Corps," she said last week as crews put finishing touches on exhibits and Marines were given their marching orders for the museum's dedication this Friday.

President Bush is scheduled to speak at the event, which also marks the 231st birthday of the Corps. When the museum opens to the general public the following Monday, Nov. 13, visitors will be able to see items dating back to the earliest days of the Corps, such as a colonial powder horn, and continuing through the nation's major conflicts.

The museum also plans to share the Corps' story in other ways. Interactive exhibits allow visitors to see, hear and even feel combat. The room temperature, for example, drops noticeably within an exhibit showing Marines battling in wintertime Korea.

Newsreels recount the times as they happened. The stoic faces of unidentified Marines look down on visitors in the sunlit atrium and from combat photos in adjacent galleries. For a fee, visitors can pilot a flight simulator or fire M-16 rifles in a simulation designed to drive home that every Marine is a rifleman.

Lin Ezell, the museum's director, said the exhibits are part of the effort to capture the experience of every Marine.

"We can't tell you what their names are," she said, referring to the many photos. "They're the faces of every Marine."

A 13-minute film features current and retired Marines, some well known, talking about what it means to be a Marine. U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., says he would not be a senator if not for first being a Marine.

"Training, discipline, accountability, courage -- I learned that from the masters," he says in the film.

The signature architectural feature of the museum is its 210-foot-tall mast, which rises above the treeline and is visible to motorists on Interstate 95. Ezell, half-jokingly, says the museum could very well become the most popular rest stop along I-95 -- admission is free. The Marines' famous flag-raising at Iwo Jima during World War II served as the inspiration for the angled spire. Organizers anticipate up to 600,000 visitors annually.

The nonprofit Marine Corps Heritage Foundation has raised about $60 million from private donors to construct the $90 million museum, with the Marine Corps putting up an additional $30 million to build the exhibits and furnish the museum. Organizers say they need to raise an additional $70 million to complete a second 63,000-square-foot phase of the building and Semper Fidelis Memorial Park.

(J. Stewart Bryan III, chairman of the board of Media General Inc., is a member of the foundation's volunteer leadership board, and Media General, the parent company of The Times-Dispatch, is one of the foundation's corporate sponsors.)

The museum features a mess hall and a colonial-style tavern, as well as a gift shop selling items such as a Marine Corps version of Monopoly and wood carvings of Chesty, the Corps' bulldog mascot.

The first phase features permanent exhibits on World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Permanent galleries devoted to the Colonial period, Civil War and World War I are to be added later. A temporary exhibit titled "Global War on Terrorism" is devoted to Sept. 11, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Not everyone will agree that we should be in Iraq and Afghanistan today, but every American in uniform goes where his or her commander-in-chief directs him," Ezell said. "This museum helps you understand why. It helps you understand the courage and commitment of Marines, especially important during times of war."

Contact staff writer Kiran Krishnamurthy at kkrishnamurthy@timesdispatch.com or (540) 371-4792.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-07-06, 06:34 AM
La Crosse man heading to Marine museum, breakfast with Bush
By Steve Cahalan / Lee Newspapers

LA CROSSE, Wis. - Ken Espenes of La Crosse doesn't plan to see director Clint Eastwood's World War II epic, "Flags of Our Fathers," about the invasion of Iwo Jima and the five Marines and one Navy corpsman who raised the second U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.

"I don't want to be reminded of all the bloody scenes," Espenes said softly Monday. "I've been 61 years trying to forget some of this stuff. I know what the real stuff was. Although I'm sure it's a good movie."

But the 80-year-old Espenes will fly to Washington, D.C., for Friday's dedication of the new National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., and breakfast Saturday at the White House with President George Bush and the surviving members of the platoon that raised the flags.

"There's only nine of us left," Espenes said of the 3rd Platoon of Company E, 2nd Battalion of the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marine Division.

Espenes was 18, an automatic rifleman and a private when the 42-man platoon landed on the island.

He was one of about 40 Americans - the surviving platoon members and others - who were atop Mount Suribachi when the flags were raised.

An image of the second flag going up won Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal the Pulitzer Prize.

Espenes was within 100 feet as he watched both flag raisings. Mount Suribachi mostly was secured by then, he said.

"The sight of the dead and the wounded is something I can never forget," said Espenes, who was wounded twice in the battle for Iwo Jima.

But he is excited about this week's trip to Washington with his wife, Mary. "You can't receive a better honor than this," he added.

His brother, retired Marine Lt. Jon Espenes, is responsible for some of this week's activities for the nine surviving platoon members. Jon Espenes knows Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will sit with the platoon members at a dinner.

The platoon members also will attend Saturday's Veterans Day ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. President Bush will place a wreath there during the ceremony. Later, the platoon members will travel to the new National World War II Memorial in Washington. Espenes visited the memorial a year ago.

Espenes, who retired as a La Crosse police sergeant after 29 years with the department, said he has attended Marine reunions but didn't stay in touch with the two small groups of soldiers who raised the flags on Iwo Jima. "I knew them all," he said of the flag-raisers.

As he flipped through his World War II photos, Espenes paused and pulled out a small print of the famous flag-raising photo that was autographed and given to him by Ira Hayes, one of the Marines in the photo.

Eastwood's film goes back and forth between the battle and the subsequent experiences of the three survivors from the second flag raising. Hayes, who was uncomfortable in the public spotlight, battled alcoholism and died in 1955 at age 32.

Steve Cahala, a reporter for the La Crosse (Wis.) Tribune, can be reached at (60 791-8229 or Scahalan@lacrossetribune.com.

thedrifter
11-07-06, 01:17 PM
November 13, 2006
Home of heroes
Ultramodern museum honors Corps history

By Rob Colenso Jr.
Staff writer

Once it opens to the public, the museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Christmas. Admission and parking are free. For more information, visit www.usmcmuseum.org.

It’s all about Marines, but you don’t have to wear the eagle, globe and anchor to love the new National Museum of the Marine Corps.

We’re history junkies, but we don’t rave about military museums very often. They tend to be dull, stuffy buildings full of antique firearms and dusty old uniform items encased in glass, with tiny placards announcing another in a long string of historical dates you should know, but just can’t seem to make stick in your brain.

But you don’t want to miss this new museum, located just a stone’s throw from the main gate at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.

As you make your way through some of the most immersive exhibits ever seen in a military museum, you’ll feel the rumble of an amphibious tractor bringing you to a beachhead under fire, the chill of the frozen battlefields of North Korea and the heat of the Vietnamese jungle. You’ll even get an earful from an ill-tempered Marine Corps drill instructor.

It’s an experience you’ll never forget.

When it opens to the public Nov. 13 after a dedication ceremony coinciding with the Nov. 10 celebration of the Corps’ 231st birthday, those who don’t already know the Corps will find an experience that may be the next best thing to stepping onto the yellow footprints at Marine Corps boot camp.

Only the beginning

Designed by Fentress Bradburn Architects of Denver, the museum is a joint venture between the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. The service provided about $30 million to restore artifacts and design exhibits, while the foundation raised $60 million in building-construction funds.

The completion of the 118,000-square-foot building, on a 135-acre site near Quantico, ends what is only the first phase of a project that began in 1999. It opens with four permanent galleries; two temporary exhibits highlight the Marine Corps Combat Art Program and the Corps’ role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though visitors will have to pay to try some exhibit items, such as a marksmanship simulator and flight simulator, admission and parking at the museum are free.

Like most museums, this one includes a cafeteria, but here, too, the museum is uniquely Marine. Just off the mess hall is a fully functional beer hall — a replica of Philadelphia’s Tun Tavern, the colonial watering hole cited as the birthplace of the Marine Corps.

Four more galleries — likely coming in 2008 or 2009 — will replace the two temporary exhibits. Those are expected to highlight the colonial era, the Civil War, World War I and the period between the two world wars.

A second phase calls for additional exhibits, an IMAX theater, a display armory, parade ground, hiking trails, a memorial park and a chapel; the building is expected to expand to nearly 181,000 square feet.

Awe-inspiring entrance

Visitors entering the museum step first into the Leatherneck Gallery, a stunning rotunda beneath the tilted mast. Overhead, a peaked steel-and-glass roof supports the mast; on sunny days, the room is bathed in light.

The rest of the museum is a hands-on experience that lets the visitor get up close and personal with the Corps, but this first gallery is intended to be a quiet space, a place to “contemplate the history of the Marine Corps,” said Lin Ezell, the museum director.

Across the rotunda from the front doors is a multilevel series of stairs and platforms that any seafaring Marine or sailor will quickly recognize as the superstructure of a ship. It leads the eye upward to the ceiling, where four aircraft hang overhead — FG-1 and F4U Corsairs, a Curtiss JN-1 Jenny and an AV-8 Harrier.

Here, the visitor also encounters the first two in a series of life-size combat scenes; one features Marines dashing out of a helicopter in a hot landing zone, and the other depicts an amphibious landing.

The cast figures are strikingly accurate. They should be, considering current-day Marines volunteered for model duty, subjecting themselves to a three-hour, full-body casting process.

Wherever possible, exhibit designers brought in Marines holding the job specialty of the mannequin subject — radio operators posed for radio-operator display characters, for example — to ensure the most accurate portrayal possible of each of the more than 70 figures, Ezell said.

Sights and sounds of battle

The museum’s first four permanent galleries drop the visitor into the middle of recruit training and combat.

With interactive displays and multimedia presentations, the sights and sounds of Marine life are nearly as real as the real thing. In some cases, room temperatures change to match the combat environment, and floors vibrate to mimic the feeling of movement in a military vehicle.

“Making Marines.” Visitors start where Marines begin their journey — boot camp. Voices fill the air at the gallery’s opening piece, a recruitment bus filled with anxious newbies. The voices are those of the recruits, whose anxious thoughts and concerns take visitors inside the mind of the enlistee. Those worried voices soon are joined by the full-volume blast of drill instructors offering their own special greetings to the new arrivals.

From there, visitors can get hands-on with the M16 rifle, taking aim in a laser-simulation marksmanship trainer. His-and-her booths afford visitors the chance to get a one-on-one butt-chewing from a male or female drill instructor.

“Uncommon Valor.” The World War II exhibits begin not on the battlefield but in a home-front living room, where a family listens to President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The room’s wallpaper “dissolves” as the speech continues, replaced by images of the Japanese sneak attack.

Visitors “ride into war” in an amphibious assault vehicle — when the landing ramp closes, 180-degree screens play black-and-white footage of the Iwo Jima landing as the vehicle vibrates and shakes to replicate the feel of crashing waves and the hum of the engine.

When the landing ramp drops, visitors step out onto the black sands of Iwo, where they walk through another combat scene before seeing one of the museum’s highlight pieces: One of the two original flags raised over the island.

“Send in the Marines.” The battle of the “Frozen Chosin” is the centerpiece of the Korean War gallery, highlighting the epic battle at the Chosin Reservoir.

After viewing a video presentation projected on a wall of “ice,” visitors step into an adjoining room and instantly feel a chill — the “Frozen Chosin” room is kept at 58 degrees.

In the Chosin, they join Capt. Bill Barber and his 200 or so leathernecks of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, in their defense of a mountain pass just as a Chinese regiment is about to attack. Barber received the Medal of Honor for his actions in the savage five-day, six-night fight that left about 1,000 enemy dead.

“In the Air, on Land and Sea.” Given the length of the Vietnam War, the exhibits in this gallery focus not on the war’s chronology, but on the types of fighting Marines experienced.

The most immersive exhibit is that of the 1967 battle at Hill 881 South. Visitors pass through a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter fuselage, hearing conversation among the pilots and crewmen before exiting the aircraft’s back ramp to enter the combat scene.

The room is hotter than the rest of the museum, putting visitors in the “heat” of battle, complete with helicopter rotor wash and the sights and sounds of combat. The boot prints visitors see in the red clay floor of this exhibit are from standard-issue boots from the time.

History in photos

The history of the Corps’ latest war is still being written, and its legends are still being made. Without the same wealth of historic material on hand, the museum tells the story of Marine Corps post-Sept. 11 operations in a photographic gallery called “Global War on Terrorism: The U.S. Marine Corps in Today’s Fight.”

This more conventional museum gallery features military and civilian photography of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.

Marine Corps combat art is the central subject of a second temporary gallery. Since its inception in 1942, the Marine Corps Combat Art Program has grown to include more than 350 artists and nearly 8,000 works documenting Marine operations from Afghanistan to Somalia and beyond.

A few Marines stationed at Quantico have had opportunities for a sneak-peek at the museum. Among them was Capt. Skip Barth, with Marine Corps Systems Command.

As he walked the aisles of the photo gallery Oct. 25 in his second visit to the museum, Barth shared his thoughts on the striking photography. He deployed to Iraq with several of the photographers whose work is featured there and said the photos brought back memories of his war-zone tour.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “Seeing the firefights ... it’s showing Marines doing what they do, leading [in] firefights, helping Iraqis, helping in the villages.”

Sheila Vemmer contributed to this report.


Star-studded opening weekend
In the mad scramble of the last couple of weeks before opening day, the sound of power drills and the smell of drying paint still filled the air as installation crews hustled to finish exhibits before the Marine Corps’ Nov. 10 birthday.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps doesn’t open to the public until Nov. 13, but that birthday kicks off a weekend filled with dedication events and museum tours for invited guests.

The roughly 15,000 guests invited to the 2 p.m. dedication ceremony include President Bush, members of his Cabinet, all of the living former Marine commandants and Marine delegations from all 50 states.

To be emceed by Jim Lehrer, a former Marine and host of PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” the ceremony will include music courtesy of “American Idol” finalist Josh Gracin, a former Marine turned country crooner.

Among the museum’s first guests will be veterans’ groups and military families, who will tour the exhibit halls on Veterans Day, Nov. 11. That night, the museum’s Semper Fidelis Park will be dedicated, and a candlelight memorial service will be held in honor of fallen Marines.

Semper Fidelis Park is an outdoor area threaded with walkways that offer stunning views of the museum exterior. Those walkways are lined with engraved memorial bricks — offered to those who donated at least $300 to the museum — that honor Marines.

Once it opens to the public, the museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Christmas. Admission and parking are free. For more information, visit www.usmcmuseum.org.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-08-06, 06:11 AM
Making Marines
November 8, 2006 1:29 am

Leatherneck Gallery

A wide plaza outside funnels you into the museum where you soon find yourself in a 160-foot-tall glass atrium that covers the Leatherneck Gallery.

"Visitors need a moment where you're introduced to the building and the building greets you," said Jessica del Pilar of the architectural firm that designed the museum.

The Marine Corps' air, ground and sea forces are all represented in this first gallery.

An abstract, aerial pattern of the Earth's surface is designed in the terrazzo floor, representing both sea and land. Aircraft from different eras are suspended from the beams, exemplifying the Corps' air assault capabilities.

All of the museum's hallways lead back to the Leatherneck Gallery, giving visitors a break from "museum fatigue," architect Curtis Worth Fentress said.

"It creates a space you can come back to," he said. "It's a space that's meant to give you a rest."
Making Marines

From the first step into the boot-camp gallery, you're greeted as a new recruit.

A recruitment bus depicts arrival at boot camp, and a barber shop chair is ready for you to get your Marine haircut. (Don't worry: There's no barber.)

You'll hear orders shouted, and can step into a booth to stand at attention and receive "guidance" from a drill instructor.

Information about training and selection is on the walls, and video testimonials from Marines continually play.

You can try lifting a 90-pound combat pack and attempt to meet the chin-up standard for Marines.

For a fee, you can also test your marksmanship skills with a laser-simulated M-16 A2 rifle.
Legacy Walk

After watching a moving 13-minute film in the theater, if you're in a hurry, you can get an overview of Marine Corps and world history as you make your way around the museum.

Built onto the wall on the right-hand side, shadowboxes containing artifacts supplement a detailed timeline of world events.

Several video presentations are built into the left wall, and a bomber plane used in World War I is overhead.
Uncommon Valor, 1940-1945

In the World War II gallery, you'll first hear President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Day of Infamy radio address. Cast figures sit in a living room of the time listening as newsreel of the events flashes across the wall.

"You've heard the story of Pearl Harbor so many times so we decided to tell it from the perspective of the mother and daughter left behind," museum director Lin Ezell said.

Vehicles, aircraft, weapons and uniforms of the era are on display and information about the major battles covers the walls.

In this gallery, you'll have the opportunity to experience the amphibious landing at Iwo Jima in one of the museum's three "immersion exhibits."

After passing through the landing simulation, you'll come face to face with the second U.S. flag raised over Mount Suribachi.
Send in the Marines, 1946-1954

A schoolhouse lesson on the Cold War starts your trek through the Korean War gallery. After a briefing on the political climate of the era, you can look up to see a piece of Marine innovation--a Sikorsky helicopter.

Next, you can watch video of the battle at Inchon and read about Gen. Douglas MacArthur's successful amphibious landing there.

Passing through glass doors, you will be chilled in the next immersion exhibit. The temperature is kept at 58 degrees to help bring to life the Marines' ordeal at the Toktong Pass across the Chosin Reservoir just as the Chinese are beginning their attack on Fox Company.

Near the end of the gallery, you can view a containment box that was used to hold POWs and was designed to keep them from standing, sitting or moving freely.
Land, Air and Sea, 1955-1974

Walking into the Vietnam War gallery, you can watch a video about Marine aviation that is projected onto the belly of an A-4 Skyhawk.

The thatched-hut village of Quan Nam is re-created in the gallery as is an urban combat scene in Hue City.

Ducking to fit through the fuselage of a CH-46 helicopter, you will find yourself in the museum's third immersion exhibit.

Leaving the helicopter, you land atop Hill 881 South and hear the sounds of the battle at Khe Sanh.

Leaving the hill, you can watch news clips of the war and protests on televisions in a storefront window.
Global War on Terrorism: The U.S. Marine Corps in Today's Fight

In this temporary exhibit, you can view images from Sept. 11, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The images are provided by combat photographers from the Marine Corps Combat Visual Information Center.

About 100 images cover air, ground and support operations.

This gallery will be updated frequently.

In the hall outside the gallery, you can pay a fee to ride in a flight simulator.

--Jenn Rowell

Ellie

thedrifter
11-08-06, 07:09 PM
Marine museum immerses visitors in history of Corps

Building's exhibits target all senses; dedication Friday

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM, Associated Press
November 8, 2006

QUANTICO, Va. - From the highway, the National Museum of the Marine Corps beckons to visitors, its 210-foot-tall steel spire cutting through the sky, evoking the historic flag-raising at Iwo Jima.

Inside, visitors can experience that iconic World War II moment, landing on the black sand beaches of Iwo Jima and viewing one of the flags raised atop Mount Suribachi and captured on film by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.

The sensory display is one of three immersive exhibits in the 118,000-square-foot museum that use sound, lighting and even temperature changes to help viewers experience moments in Marine Corps history firsthand.

"We're telling our stories not with just objects," said Lin Ezell, the director of the museum about 25 miles south of Washington, D.C. "We're using the cutting-edge technology of the museum business to help bring those stories alive."

But the objects are there - more than 1,000 of them, including the UH-1E "Huey" helicopter that was piloted by then-Capt. Stephen Pless, who received the Medal of Honor for rescuing Army soldiers during the Vietnam War. Fighter aircraft, including an AV-8 Harrier and the FG-1 and F4U Corsair, are suspended from the thatched glass and metal roof of the museum's Leatherneck Gallery - a circular entryway surrounded by quotes about the Corps chiseled in marble.

The $90 million museum features a fast-track timeline on the Marines, exhibits on World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and an area dedicated to what it is like to ship off to boot camp to become a Marine.

The museum also features a temporary exhibit on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan told through the lenses of combat cameras. On view are photos of Marines handing out cotton candy to Iraqi children, a close-up of a Marine's weathered fingers wrapped around the trigger of his weapon. Other pictures show the sun illuminating the body of a fallen Iraqi insurgent, his mouth agape and his weapon by his side.

Officials said they need $70 million more to expand the museum to its 181,000-square-foot capacity to include the history of the Corps from its legendary start at Philadelphia's stonewall and wooded Tun Tavern in 1775.

Just outside the gates of Quantico Marine Corps Base, the museum serves as centerpiece of the 135-acre Marine Corps Heritage Center. The center is a public-private partnership between the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and its military counterpart.

President Bush, John Glenn and several other notable figures are scheduled to attend the museum's dedication on Friday, the 231st anniversary of the Corps. The museum opens to the public Monday.

thedrifter
11-09-06, 01:25 PM
November 9, 2006
Fellowship of Fighters With Tales of Sacrifice
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

TRIANGLE, Va., Nov. 6 — I may not be alone in my reaction to the National Museum of the Marine Corps, which is opening on Friday adjacent to the Marine base in Quantico, outside Washington. In making my way through its 118,000 square feet of exhibitions, timelines, sound-and-light shows, historical videos, battle accounts and fighting machines, I felt a little like an alien visitor getting to know another culture. I am not among those for whom these packaged experiences (executed with great skill in the current museum mode) evoke reminiscences and platoon allegiances. I know this world only from news reports, movies and histories.

But many who will visit this impressive complex — which will grow by another 80,000 square feet of exhibition, classroom and theater space in coming years — will be intimately familiar with its account of Marine culture, beginning with basic training so intense it is intended to strip the recruit of any hint of the individualism so deeply cherished on the outside.

That experience is evoked here by a model of a bus bearing hopeful young men to a Marine training camp. “Get off my bus,” the voice of a drill instructor would roar. “Stand on the yellow footprints on the pavement. Now!”

Those footprints are here, at the bus’s side. Nearby are two soundproof booths into which the museumgoer — having just begun this engaging, serpentine journey through recent Marine Corps history — seals himself to hear the disorienting shouts of the drill sergeant.

Some visitors, who have memories of such shouts, may have flown, during World War II, an F4U Corsair much like the airplane suspended from the ceiling in the Leatherneck Gallery here. They may know that marines are called leathernecks because of a strap that protected their necks from sword slashes in the 18th century. They may gaze upward, toward the angled sweep of that gallery’s ceiling, which encloses a space that is at once atrium, lobby and arena for display of the land, sea and air equipment used in crucial battles, and recognize allusions to ship’s decks and portholes and even to the sea itself, from which the marines have traditionally emerged, their weapons raised.

While many such visitors would not know immediately that the thrusting bayonetlike rod that extends out of the skewed glass roof is part of an abstract representation of the famed flag-raising at Iwo Jima, the iconography, once identified, will have more associations for them than just the new Clint Eastwood movie. A reproduction of the sculpture of that scene is at the entrance of the nearby Marine base, and the two American flags raised that day are on display here. Amid the quotations praising marines inscribed in stone in this circular gallery is one that also has the potency of legend and the poignancy of truth, as if addressing those whose profession it is to fight our wars. It was cried out by First Sergeant Dan Daly as he led his men against German positions during the late days of World War I: “Come on you sons of *****es, do you want to live forever?”

One of the doctrines of this elite fighting fellowship, and one of the themes of this museum, is that the Marine affiliation does not break with the end of active service, let alone death: a sense of identification extends over centuries. Symbols — like the Marine insignia of the eagle, globe and anchor — take on a persistent significance, since every living marine who fought during wartime is also a surviving marine who has seen others fall. In that way too this museum, with all its symbols, is a place of pride and remembrance, a spirit emphasized in the atrium’s central space. (The building is designed by Fentress Bradburn Architects.)

It is also an attempt to remind others of the role marines have played. The museum evolved out of a partnership of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, which raised $57 million in private money for construction, and the corps itself, which raised $30 million for the exhibitions, many designed by Christopher Chadbourne & Associates, a firm also involved in designing the new George Washington exhibitions at nearby Mount Vernon. (One gallery, devoted to combat art, is sponsored by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the chairman emeritus of the New York Times Company.) The museum is part of the Marine Corps Heritage Center, which features a memorial park and is eventually to include parade grounds, a chapel, a conference center and a hotel.

That project will require additional fund-raising. The museum itself, according to its director, Lin Ezell, plans to begin its Phase 2 in 2008. Now this historical survey of the corps, which was founded on Nov. 10, 1775 (the opening on Friday, which is reservation only, is a birthday celebration), is necessarily incomplete. The 18th- and 19th-century galleries have yet to be built. Recent history is represented by a single gallery of photographs from Iraq and Afghanistan that will eventually be replaced by a full-scale history of the Marines since the Vietnam War.

But what is being unveiled now is the heart of the story, at least for contemporary sensibilities: detailed accounts of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. These wars — still in the realm of living memory — are not only chronicled with photographs and wall panels, but also re-enacted in tableaus with life-size figures molded from the features of 75 active-duty marines. These figures are frozen in motion in tanks or jeeps, or appear in the midst of battles atmospherically evoked in what the museum is calling immersion galleries. The floors’ molded sand and mud bear the footprints of the era’s boots, the lights and sounds imitate weather and weaponry, and history is turned into theater.

Such immersion of course is aimed less at veterans than at visitors who have not lived through the trauma, onlookers for whom the chill air of the gallery devoted to the battle at Toktong Pass during the Korean War or the humid haze of a siege on Hill 881 South in Vietnam (into which visitors descend from the thumping ramp of a real CH-46 helicopter fuselage) is a curious experience.

But there is so much information in the midst of the sensation that the result becomes thoroughly absorbing. I walked through these winding galleries — where scenes, equipment and wall panels intermingle, and video screens can even appear on the undersides of planes — feeling like an innocent abroad, astonished at the historical panorama.

For the most part these exhibitions do not give a whitewashed account. The display about boot camp even mentions the 1956 tragedy in which an overzealous drill instructor took his platoon on an unauthorized march through a swamp one night, leading to the deaths of six recruits. There is much defeat here; the heroism at the Toktong battle, for example, is the valor that leads to survival in the midst of retreat. The early Pacific battles of World War II in Guam and the Philippines were pageants of blood.

But the account of World War II, which focuses extensively on the Pacific because of the centrality of the Marines’ involvement, is also a story of strategic lessons learned, in which air, land and water forces became tautly coordinated in fighting difficult battles against entrenched Japanese soldiers. The lessons are less clear in the accounts of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Here the marines occasionally chafe at the role given them or celebrate their relationships with South Vietnamese villages, but an effort to make sense of the whole, with all its scars, is missing.

Given the unsatisfactory, painful winding down of both wars, there are hints of discontent here, signs of the ancient tension between the political and military authorities. Attention is drawn, for example, to the government’s disinclination to take risks after initial triumphs in Korea or to its confusion about strategy and ambition in Vietnam. An unstated lesson is that lack of clarity, determination and flexibility in either the political or the military realm can lead to calamity.

But here is the museum’s persistent point: The same sacrifice is demanded whatever mistakes are made. Whether in crucial battles — in 36 days of fighting, 6,000 marines were killed at Iwo Jima — or in more controversial extended wars, that sacrifice is subject to no second guesses. It presumes an allegiance that transcends individual judgment.

This is humbling for a civilian who has been drilled in just the opposite perspective. Yet in the best of such cases, it is through the sacrifices made by the military that we have the luxury of maintaining our proud individualism. The museum makes it possible to understand just what is demanded of those we have asked to fight for us, and how much more is so often given.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-10-06, 07:01 AM
http://images.usatoday.com/travel/_photos/2006/11/10/museum.jpg

thedrifter
11-11-06, 08:21 AM
Posted on Sat, Nov. 11, 2006
President honors Marines, speaks of peaceful future

By Deb Reichmann
Associated Press

QUANTICO, Va. - President Bush, dedicating a new Marine Corps museum, expressed optimism Friday that the United States will succeed in helping spread democracy in the Middle East.

``Years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East, growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima'' in World War II, Bush said.

Bush spoke at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of the Marine Corps, located on a 135-acre site next to the Marine Corps Base in Quantico.

The museum is the centerpiece of the Marine Corps Heritage Center, which will include a memorial park, parade grounds, artifact restoration facilities, hotel and conference center. The museum, which opens to the public Monday, will focus on the Marines' contributions throughout the nation's history, immersing visitors in the sights and sounds of Marines in action.

Bush said visitors will experience life from a Marine's perspective -- what it's like to make an amphibious landing under fire, deploy from a helicopter in Vietnam or endure a grueling boot camp.

``No, thanks,'' Bush joked.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-11-06, 08:24 AM
Saluting Marines history
Bush, 15,000 guests attend dedication of new museum honoring 'Semper Fi' spirit
BY KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Saturday, November 11, 2006

QUANTICO -- The new National Museum of the Marine Corps solves a national problem, President Bush told an audience of 15,000 invited guests at Quantico yesterday.

"For too long, the only people who have the direct experience of the Marine Corps are the Marines themselves and the enemy who's made the mistake of taking them on," he said to applause.

Bush noted the $90 million museum off Interstate 95 guides visitors through interactive exhibits and galleries, including one that depicts boot camp. "No thanks," he said to laughter, adding, "The museum will not make you into a Marine. Only a drill instructor can do that."

Appearing on the 231st anniversary of the Corps, Bush spoke of a young Marine, Cpl. Jason Dunham of New York, who died after jumping on a grenade to shield fellow Marines in western Iraq in April 2004. The president announced that Dunham, who would have turned 25 yesterday, will posthumously be awarded the Medal of Honor.

"The history of the Corps is now being written by a new generation of Marines," the president said. "Years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima."

Virginia Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., and former senators John Glenn of Ohio and Charles S. Robb of Virginia, all Marine veterans, were among those attending the dedication of the museum under a clear blue sky, as were Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-1st, and former Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner.

PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer, another Marine veteran, spoke of arriving on a train at Quantico 51 years ago with about 40 other candidates. When the drill instructor mispronounced the young man's name, Lehrer made the "idiot" mistake of correcting him.

"There was silence, absolute silence, and then I heard the terrifying click, click, click of leather heels on the deck of that train station platform," he said. The drill instructor got in Lehrer's face and shouted, "'Candidate, if I say your name is Little Bo Peep, your name is Little Bo Peep. Do you hear me?'"

"I think it was at that moment that I became a United States Marine," Lehrer said.

The newsman said his experience in the Corps has been an overriding influence during his career.

"While debates over sending Americans into harm's way are always about issues of foreign policy, geopolitics and even [domestic] politics, for me they are also always about young lance corporals and second lieutenants and other very real people in all branches of the U.S. military. People with names, ranks, serial numbers, faces, families and futures that may never be," Lehrer said.

"Semper Fi" were the words of the day as Marines from wars past greeted each other outside the museum, which opens to the public on Monday. Marines in crisp, black and blue dress uniforms, some in fatigues, poured water for those seated in a baking sun as the temperature approached 80 degrees. Large monitors showed videos of Marines at boot camp. The Marine Corps Band from Quantico played marching tunes as visitors arrived, then ended the day with the Marines' Hymn.

Eighty-year-old Ken Espenes, who traveled from La Crosse, Wis., was part of a unit of 40 Marines who climbed Mount Suribachi and whose members raised the flags at Iwo Jima.

"Our job, I guess you could say, was to secure Mount Suribachi, which we did on the fourth day of the battle. We fought our way to the top of the mountain to raise a flag," said Espenes, who attended yesterday's event with his wife, Mary, and his brother John, also a Marine.

Espenes, who was shot in the right knee, recalled having few thoughts as he fought up the mountain with other members of 3rd Platoon, Company E, 2nd Batallion, 28th Marines: "Didn't have any. Get to the top. Get it over."

"I think there are seven of us left, and here we are," he said. "It's an amazing honor just to be here, to relive the past history of the Marine Corps."

The second raising of another flag hours later was captured in the famous photo that also inspired the museum's signature element, an angled 210-foot steel spire visible from I-95. Both of the flags raised atop Suribachi will be displayed at the museum on a rotating basis. They are among more than 1,000 artifacts and 1,800 photos, letters and documents on display.

The 36-day battle for Iwo Jima was part of the United States' island-hopping strategy to defeat Japan and remains the bloodiest battle in Corps' history. About 6,100 Marines and support personnel assigned to the Corps were killed in action, died of their wounds or were presumed dead.

The first 118,000-square-foot phase of the museum features permanent exhibits on World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Permanent galleries devoted to the Colonial period, Civil War and World War I are to be added later. A temporary exhibit titled "Global War on Terrorism" is devoted to 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The nonprofit Marine Corps Heritage Foundation raised about $60 million from private donors to construct the museum, with the Marine Corps putting up an additional $30 million to build the exhibits and furnish the museum.

(J. Stewart Bryan III, chairman of the board of Media General Inc., is a member of the foundation's volunteer leadership board, and Media General, the parent company of The Times-Dispatch, is one of the foundation's corporate sponsors.)

Alfred T. DeVault, who served in Korea, and his wife drove 14 hours from Brooksville, Fla., near Tampa, to attend. The couple donated $900 for three memorial bricks in honor of DeVault, his father and his uncle, all Marines.

"We're patriotic people," said DeVault, 71, who served with the 1st Marine Division in Korea and whose duties included running supplies to the MLR, or Main Line of Resistance. After six years with the Marines, DeVault served in the Air Force.

"I enjoyed it all," said DeVault, one of many disabled Marines in wheelchairs. "But the Marine Corps is the finest of the fine."

Contact staff writer Kiran Krishnamurthy at kkrishnamurthy@timesdispatch.com or (540) 371-4792.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-11-06, 08:41 AM
Marines, Bush dedicate museum

By Tarron Lively
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 11, 2006

President Bush yesterday attended the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., an event nearly 20 years in the making.

Mr. Bush and thousands of current and retired Marines converged on the Marine Corps base to celebrate the opening of museum. The dedication coincided with the 231st anniversary of the Marine Corps.

After a 21-gun salute and a flyover of four F-18 jets, Mr. Bush told the crowd that the museum will honor past and present Marines and preserve the Corps' history for future generations.

"For too long, the only people to have direct experience of the Marine Corps have been the Marines themselves -- and the enemy who's made the mistake of taking them on," Mr. Bush said, drawing cheers and applause.

"In this museum, you'll experience life from a Marine's perspective. You'll feel what it's like to go through boot camp, make an amphibious landing under fire or deploy from a helicopter in Vietnam."
The museum opens to the public Monday and is expected to attract 250,000 to 600,000 visitors annually. Admission is free.
"The museum will not make you into a Marine -- only a drill instructor can do that," Mr. Bush said. "But by putting you in the boots of a Marine, this museum will leave you with a rich appreciation for the history of the Corps."

The 118,000-square-foot museum is adjacent to the base. The building's skyline is designed to suggest the five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the flag at Iwo Jima in 1945.

"Marines put a great deal of stock in history," said Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps. "We use it for two reasons. One, to inspire us and, two, to educate us. This museum, I believe, will do that not only for the Marines, but for the American public."

The museum is the centerpiece of the Marine Corps Heritage Center on 135 acres, donated by Prince William County, between Interstate 95 and Route 1 opposite the main gate of the Quantico base.

When completed, the complex will include a parade deck, memorial walking trails, a chapel, an Imax theater, a conference center and a hotel.

In the late 1980s, Congress authorized each military service branch to develop its own national historic center.

Construction of the Marine museum began in 2004.

"It is here that the proud history of the United States Marine Corps will be appreciated, reflected upon and enjoyed like never before," said Ron Christmas, a retired lieutenant general and president of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, which spearheaded the building of the museum.

During the two-hour ceremony, Mr. Bush announced that Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, of Scio, N.Y., would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military decoration.

Cpl. Dunham, who was killed near Karabilah, Iraq, in 2004 while shielding fellow Marines from a hand grenade, would have been 25 years old yesterday.

"You might say he was born to be a Marine," Mr. Bush said to Cpl. Dunham's parents, Dan and Deb Dunham, who were in attendance.

Jim Lehrer of PBS' "The NewsHour," who served three years as an infantry officer in the Corps, said such actions of courage are common for Marines.

"The death rate among Marines in Iraq has been more than double that of the other service," Mr. Lehrer said. "That's a first-to-fight, first-wave pattern that has pretty much held since the Revolutionary War ... whatever needs to be done, particularly if the need is for it to be done well, and be done immediately."

Today the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation will hold a memorial to honor deceased Marines.


www.washingtontimes.com/photogallery/index.php

Ellie

thedrifter
11-11-06, 10:02 AM
'In this museum, our story will be told'
By AILEEN M. STRENG
astreng@potomacnews.com
Saturday, November 11, 2006

Thousands of Marines -old and young- gathered Friday in an atmosphere that was part reunion and part celebration to dedicate the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico.

Most had traveled from across the country and waited several hours for the ceremony to begin. Many were elderly; quite a few waited in wheelchairs.

Retired Marines from World War II proudly wore their dress blue uniforms. Others sported a variety of hats and jackets; their insignias bore the names of their units and the wars in which they had fought.

The retirees eagerly greeted and chatted with each other throughout the day. And they approached active-duty Marines, many also in dress blues, to wish them "Happy Birthday."

Friday was also the 231st anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps.

Everyone seemed to have a camera and posed for pictures - a distinct pride on their faces in solemn remembrance of Marine Corps history.

"This is a dedication to the memories of the Marines who have brought honor to themselves and this country," said Navy Rear Adm. Alan T. Baker, chaplain of the Marine Corps, in his invocation.

"We are the Marines, and in this museum, our story will be told," said Jim Lehrer, a former Marine and a news anchor and author. "It's a single monumental story made up of 231 years of separate stories of heroism and courage, of dedication and sacrifice, of service to our country and to our Corps, of honor and loyalty to each other in war and in peace."

Since the Corps' founding, about four million Americans have served their country as Marines.

"This museum is about all of them," Lehrer said. "It's about what it means to be a Marine, no matter the time, length, place, rank or nature of the service. It's the shared knowledge of what comes from being a Marine."

Invited guests were taken to the museum in 200 buses leaving from the Pentagon and Stafford County Airport. The HOV lanes of Interstate 95 were closed to regular traffic to get the buses in and out of the site.

President Bush was welcomed with a 21-gun salute from cannons and a fly-over of four F/A-18 Hornets.

The president singled out service of one Marine in particular during his remarks.

Cpl. Jason Dunham died in Iraq after engaging in hand-to-hand combat with an insurgent, and then throwing himself on a grenade to save his fellow Marines.

"Cpl. Dunham's mom and dad are with us today on what would have been this brave young man's 25th birthday," Bush said.

"We remember that the Marine who so freely gave his life was your beloved son," Bush said to Dunham's parents, who received a standing ovation.

Bush also announced that the nation would recognize Dunham's actions with the nation's highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor.

"As long as we have Marines like Cpl. Dunham, America will never fear for her liberty. And as long as we have this fine museum, America will never forget their sacrifices," Bush said.

"The history of the Corps is now being written by a new generation of Marines," he said from a raised podium to more than 10,000 Marines, many of them veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima," Bush said.

Seated on the platform with Bush were Sen. John Warner, R-Va. and Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, both former Marines; Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force; the current commandant of the Marine Corps along with three former commandants; former Gov. Mark Warner; U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va.; and Prince William County Supervisor Maureen Caddigan, R-Dumfries.

"It will be quite an honor to sit up there," Caddigan said before the dedication began. The museum is in her district and she was among those who worked to bring it to Prince William County.

"This museum means everything to Prince William County. It's a very proud day and I feel honored to be part of it," Caddigan said.


Ellie

jinelson
11-11-06, 10:33 AM
What a fine tribute to us. One that we all can be proud of.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/3zsedj7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v660/jinelson/mchdr.gif

horselady
11-13-06, 02:28 AM
AWESOME! BREATHTAKING! BEYOND EVEN THE
GREATEST EXPECTATIONS!

There are no words to describe such an inspiring tribute
to the USMC. Hubby and I attended the dedication ceremony
and then toured the museum the next day.

It's everything that's been described in the posts above,
and more. 2 hours was not enough time to see everything.
As Marines, you all will feel an enormous sense of pride,
knowing that the public at large will finally have the
opportunity to understand what it means to become
a US Marine and to serve the country despite great
risk to his/her life.

What you won't get see is the very moving closing ceremony
held outdoors in front of the museum, where Marines were
dressed in the appropriate uniform to represent every war
in which Marines had ever been engaged. After a brief
introduction, each one read an authentic letter that
had been sent home to mothers, wives, girlfriends, etc
from a Marine during each of those wars.

What really made me well up, was at the very end, as dusk
had turned to darkness, to hear the sound of taps being
played so beautifully by a Marine whose silhouette was
subtly illuminated from below, against the awe-inspiring
backdrop formed by the museum's "Iwojima" roof. When
it was over you could hear a pin drop.

I can't wait to go back and see it when it is fully completed.
I tried to get a turn at the fighter jet flight simulator that
was there but it wasn't yet open.

This museum is truly one-of-a-kind in the world. It does you
proud, Marines!


Bonni

muck
11-13-06, 01:00 PM
There were approximatley 15,000 people there and talk about a "Band of Brothers" The steps were crisper, the heads were taller, and the chests were out ! The Marines were on honored ground. It did not matter if one spent 2 years or 40 years in the Marines, all were in step.

Its not to late to order a "Brick" and support the Museum.

http://[URL="http://www.usmcmuseum.org/[/URL]

Hope the link works.

SF,
Muck

muck
11-13-06, 01:04 PM
Sorry, Try this

http://www.usmcmuseum.org/

bigdog43701
11-13-06, 01:13 PM
i too attended this event with my wife. after meeting several "buddies" that have been where i have been and talking to them i feel more relaxed. i even found a very good friend (even if he was at the time a captain) who saw me, walked over put out his hand and told me, "Good job over there, welcome home Marine". i am finally home.

thedrifter
11-13-06, 04:28 PM
Marines museum opens

By Ruth Lang
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2006

4:48 p.m.
An estimated 2,000 visitors were expected to pass through the National Museum of the Marine Corps today, the first day the new facility has been open to the public.

The doors opened early today and the first visitor received a commemorative coin from Gen. Donald Gardner, president of Marine Corps University.

Museum director Lin Ezell said opening day went smoothly.
"It may have been our first day open to the public, but we've been practicing since Oct. 21 with visitors on a limited basis," said Mrs. Ezell.

Rachel Clark, assistant to the director, said museum traffic had been steady all day. By 3 p.m. yesterday 1,781 guests were counted, and Mrs. Ezell expected the day's attendance to be around 2,000.

Veterans Day weekend was also a busy time for the musuem, from Friday's dedication to veteran and military family tours on Saturday and Sunday. Mrs. Ezell said 12,178 visitors came inside over the weekend.

Numbers like that could keep the museum on track to meet its expected 250,000 to 600,000 visitors per year.

"If we get half a million our first year, I'll be delighted," said Mrs. Ezell.

Mrs. Ezell thought the three immersive exhibits of Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir and Hill 881 South were the most popular among visitors. The Mess Hall cafeteria and Tun Tavern, a recreation of the Philadelphia tavern where the first Marines were allegedly recruited on Nov. 10, 1775, were also popular with the crowds.

The museum was dedicated Friday by President George Bush as part of ceremonies celebrating the Marine Corps' 231st birthday.

The admission-free museum is open to the public every day of the year except Christmas from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Located just outside the Quantico Marine Corps Base between Interstate 95 and Route 1, the 118,000 square-foot structure is visible from I-95.

Exhibits that were open Monday (Nov. 13) included "Legacy Walk," a timeline of Marine history; "Making Marines," a boot camplike experiential exhibit; era galleries highlighting WWII, Korea and Vietnam; "Global War on Terrorism," a temporary gallery that chronicles Marines in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places Marines are currently stationed; and "Combat Art," an art gallery comprised of artwork created by Marines.

"We are giving the general visitor an opportunity to put his or her feet in places where Marines have gone before," said Mrs. Ezell. "It's an experience that is not about generals and epic battles, but about every individual Marine doing his or her job.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-14-06, 07:50 AM
Museum wows 'em
November 14, 2006 12:52 am

By JENN ROWELL

With a husband who served in the Marines from 1955 to 1963 and a son now stationed at Quantico, Judy Leigh has heard her share of stories.

But her trip to the new National Museum of the Marine Corps yesterday brought them to life.

"It's fantastic. It helps me to visualize what is would have been like for them. It gives me a perspective on that," the California resident said.

Judy and Gary Leigh were among the hundreds of visitors who showed up for the museum's public opening yesterday. More than 100 people filled the front lobby for a brief opening ceremony before the doors officially opened at 9 a.m.

Other Marine wives and mothers echoed Leigh's comments as they wandered through the exhibits.

"It's really interesting to me from that aspect, because I totally don't have a clue," said Debbie Newman of Point Pleasant, Texas. Her husband served from 1973 to 1977 and her son is an active duty Marines stationed in Atlanta.

Newman's husband, Hollis, acted as her guide yesterday, pointing out and explaining things he related to.

"It makes more sense when you can actually look at what they're talking about," she said.

Standing in the Making Marines exhibit that illustrates what boot camp is like for new recruits, Hollis Newman reminisced a bit.

"I mean, it's changed since I went through from my boot-camp days to my son's boot-camp days," he said.

Mary Francis Cowden of Austin, Texas, was also seeing her husband's stories about serving in World War II come to life.

"It brought back so many of the battles my husband had told me about," Cowden said.

Cowden's son, Patrick Reilly, was also a Marine and was wounded while serving in Vietnam from 1966-68. Lt. Gen. Ron Christmas, now the president of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, was Reilly's commanding officer in Vietnam.

Edward Kintzele of Michigan City, Ind., took his time exploring the exhibits. But he was still struck by the first thing he saw, the Leatherneck Gallery.

"Your first impression when you walk in is just 'wow'--and then it goes into more detail," he said. "It's kind of overloading the senses. You just try to take it all in."

Although Kintzele served in the Navy from 1961-65, including a tour in Vietnam, he has an appreciation for Marines.

"They're a different breed. They fight hard, they play hard," he said. "You can't help but love a Marine."

Noah Novak of Colorado served in the Corps from 1963-66 and was at Khe Sahn in Vietnam. George Gourley of Texas was in from 1946-62 and fought at Chosin Reservoir in Korea. They shared their memories of their experiences while they toured exhibits dedicated to those conflicts.

"I did a lot of running. During the carpet bombing, you can't even drink from a canteen, it's like an earthquake constantly," Novak said.

"I don't think there was any water in those canteens, it was all frozen," Gourley said of his time in Korea. "With all that clothing on, you felt like the Michelin man on TV."

Stories like those are what docent and former Marine Jason Ferris of Stafford County likes most about his volunteer work at the facility.

"I've really enjoyed when older Marines come in who have been at the places that are the exhibits we're standing in," he said. "Not because as a docent I have something to tell them, but because I want to hear what they can tell me."

To reach JENN ROWELL: 540/374-5000, ext. 5617
Email: jrowell@freelancestar.com

Ellie

ggyoung
11-14-06, 12:58 PM
:banana: Is there anyway that I can get the #s off of the helacopter that is in front of the musem? I belive that it is the for runner of the uh-34.

thedrifter
11-15-06, 07:22 AM
Marines Stand Tall For A Special Dedication
National Museum Of The Marine Corps Opens In Virginia

By Bob Dart, Cox Service

Quantico, Va. — When the strains of the “Marines' Hymn” drifted across the Virginia woods Friday, they rose in unison, thrust out their chests and stood straight as ramrods, even those steadied by walkers.

They had come from across America for the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

“The history of the Corps is now preserved within these walls,” President Bush told them. “Many of you here today do not need a museum to tell you this history, because you wrote it yourselves with your sweat and your sacrifice in places like Tarawa, Chosin and Khe Sahn.”

They wore combat fatigues then. On this warm autumn day, they wore tailored suits and bib overalls and jeans and faded jungle fatigues and crisply creased wool dress uniforms which were a tad snug after decades in closets. Their caps said “Semper Fi” and “USMC” and “Old Marine” and bore the eagle, globe and anchor symbol of the Corps.

“Happy Birthday,” they told each other on the 231st anniversary of the founding of the Corps and on the eve of Veterans Day.

“We are the Marines and in this museum our stories are told,” said PBS newsman Jim Lehrer, a former Marine, who spoke of the Corps' heritage of “professionalism and pride ... perfect salutes and good haircuts ... Semper Fi's and DI's.”

Mentions of DI's — drill instructors — provoked smiles as the Marines shared memories of boot camp.

There was pride but no smiles as they remembered battles from the black sands of the Pacific atoll of Iwo Jima to the bitter cold of Korea's Chosin Reservoir to the bloody, house-to-house hell of Hue City in Vietnam and Fallujah in Iraq.

George Green was a 23-year-old artillery forward observer under fire on a hillside when the American flag was raised on Iwo Jima.

“We heard a roar,” recalled Green, 85. “We looked up and saw the flag.”

But the battle was not yet won. Green had landed as a gunnery sergeant in an infantry unit, but after a day pinned down on the beach by mortar fire he was promoted to warrant officer “because we ran out of lieutenants” to be forward observers.

Later, he was wounded when “a grenade exploded three feet in front of my face.”

“The Marines were the most exciting part of my life,” said Green, whose daughter drove him to the ceremony from St. Louis.

Ken Killilea, 84, recalled “hearing the hollering” when the famed flag went up over Iwo Jima, “but I didn't see it.”

“I was incapacitated at the time. I got pretty shot up in here,” said the retired sales manager, pointing to his abdomen. Of 300 men in his unit, about 50 left the island alive.

“The Marines made a man out of me. I was a playboy in the 1940s. I had a Packard automobile and my father was fairly wealthy,” said Killilea, who now lives in Naples, Fla. “I enlisted on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor.”

“I was born into the Marine Corps,” said Lt. Col. Mike Johnson, a University of Texas graduate from Jourdanton, Texas. “My father was a retired Marine colonel.”

Nearing retirement after 20 years of active duty, Johnson said “service to the nation” is his greatest memory. “Someday my dream is to move back to Austin,” he said.

Seated on folding chairs in an asphalt parking lot, the audience faced the 210-foot impressionistic mast — symbolic of the Iwo Jima flag-raising — that rises above the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

“I'm glad I lived to see this,” said Killilea. “I had a dear friend — Sergeant Major Rodriguez — who died three days ago.”

At the dedication, Bush announced he was awarding the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, to Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, who was killed in Iraq after he jumped upon a grenade to shield his comrades.

“The history of the Corps is now being written by a new generation of Marines,” Bush said. “Years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.”

In 1997, Congress authorized each of the services to build a museum. Rather than take money from defense budgets, private organizations — largely veterans — have provided the bulk of the funding.

A new National Museum of the U.S. Army is scheduled to open in 2011 at Fort Belvoir, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington.

The U.S. Navy already has a national museum at the Washington Navy Yard, a National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Fla., and a U.S. Navy Supply Corps Museum in Athens, Ga.

The Air Force's national museum is at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Another private foundation is planning a National Coast Guard Museum in New London.

Ellie

thedrifter
11-17-06, 06:32 AM
Thursday, November 16, 2006
MARINES CELEBRATE NEW MUSEUM, BIRTHDAY

By Cpl. Sha’ahn Williams
Special to Trident

It was a warm, sunny November afternoon. It was the U.S. Marine Corps’ 231st birthday. The extraordinary circumstances made a poignant setting for the formal dedication ceremony of the National Museum of the Marine Corps Nov. 10.

Before the ceremony officially began, more than 10,000 people in attendance walked the museum’s grounds, admired its architecture and stopped to examine the commemorative bricks that line portions of the paths leading to the entrance of Semper Fidelis Memorial Park.

The historic event began with F-18 Hornets flying overhead, followed by a Flag Pageant displaying the battle standards under which Marines from 1775 to present times have fought under. From yesteryear’s ‘‘Don’t Tread On Me” to today’s ‘‘Old Glory,” Marines dressed in historic uniforms paraded the colors in front of the museum.

Inspiration was the theme of the day, as the guest and keynote speakers addressed the crowd. News anchor and former Marine Jim Lehrer was the first to take the podium. During his speech, Lehrer recounted his first moments as an officer candidate and why the museum was important to him.

‘‘We have 231 years of professionalism and pride; squared away corners and squared away lockers,” he said. ‘‘I’m grateful for my time as a Marine.”

Retired Lt. Gen. George Christmas, president of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, explained the importance of the museum and hailed it as America’s newest national treasure.

The highlight of the ceremony came when Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Michael W. Hagee introduced the keynote speaker, President George W. Bush.

The commander-in-chief first wished the Marines a happy birthday, and gave one fallen Marine’s family a special gift when he announced their son had been awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.

‘‘Cpl. Jason Dunham, who would have celebrated his 25th birthday today, sacrificed himself to save his Marines,” Bush said. ‘‘As long as we have this museum, we will never forget the sacrifice of Marines like Cpl. Dunham.”

After the ceremony, guided tours began, while other visitors roamed the parking lot visiting with long lost friends, some of whom had traveled from as far away as New Zealand to witness the festivities.

Among those in attendance were World War II, Korean and Vietnam war veterans. There were even a handful of original Navajo Code Talkers, who had traveled from Arizona and New Mexico.

‘‘This is awesome,” said former Pfc. Samuel Smith, a Code Talker from New Mexico. ‘‘I wanted to be present to personally see our own museum separate from the Navy. It’s nice to have our place here.”

Others came to see the museum in hopes that it will inspire Americans to support the troops serving overseas.

‘‘I hope the museum encourages more support for Marines and other troops fighting for America’s freedom,” said Cpl. Justin Kinneer, who was critically wounded in Iraq a year ago.

Marines, family members and friends from all walks of life came out to take part in what may become known as the Marine Corps’ biggest birthday celebration – the opening of the Corps’ own museum.

‘‘These four walls pay tribute to your contributions to American freedom,” Bush said. ‘‘This is a very important place.”

Ellie

sloan52
02-23-07, 06:16 PM
I had the oppurtunity to go visit the museum. just like to say it was an honor and that all marine should see it. semper fi.