Army has earned place of honor
In America, we build museums for the achievements, pastimes and institutions that are most important to us. Space exploration. Art. Rock and roll. Baseball. We construct these facilities as places we can visit to see up close the people and artifacts that make up a piece of the American story. We build these museums so our country never forgets how we got to where we are today, the struggles we have overcome, and what makes our nation great.
Dating back as early as 1636, the Army was a team of Colonial militias that would eventually emerge as today’s modern National Guard. It was those first soldiers who fought at Lexington and Concord. On June 14, 1775, our Founding Fathers officially established the Continental Army. It was formed more than a year before we declared our independence. In fact, the Army made it possible for us to declare ourselves independent. And its formation remains one of the most significant actions our country has ever taken.
Yet despite its vital role, the Army’s storied history has not been honored and preserved with a national museum. The Army is our oldest and largest military service. It was established to assert our nation’s freedom and it has protected it ever since. Sadly, we have been allowing its incredible legacy to be lost to time.
Thirty million men and women have worn the Army uniform. These soldiers are ordinary citizens with extraordinary stories of service. Stories like those early Americans who ended the eightyear British occupation of Boston by positioning themselves on nearby Dorchester Heights under the cover of darkness on the night of March 4, 1776. The British woke the next morning to the stunning realization that they had been outwitted by the young Army, and they could no longer safely hold the city.
There are also the stories of those Civil War soldiers whose incredible sacrifice left our nation marked by hallowed ground, yet united. We must also remember the soldiers of World War I who fought at a time when nearly 20 percent of our military was composed of immigrants, wearing their new nation’s flag on their sleeve as they deployed overseas.
Equally storied are the soldiers of World War II, which included the 442nd Regimental Combat Team composed of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast and Hawaii. They fought with legendary bravery even as their own nation kept their loved ones locked away in internment camps. In the same war, American soldiers of every faith fought and died in historic numbers as they forced their way toward Nazi concentration camps, liberating survivors from some of the darkest places our world has known.
The service of our greatest generation inspired more heroism in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm and the regional conflicts that followed. Today, a new greatest generation serves in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. These soldiers have carried forward the Army’s tradition of service, fighting on battlefields with blurred lines and enduring repeated deployments over the course of our nation’s longest wars.
A National Army Museum that is filled with these soldiers’ stories does not yet exist, though it is underway. The U.S. Army tapped the Army Historical Foundation to spearhead the campaign to turn this long overdue tribute into a reality. The Foundation has begun construction at Fort Belvoir, Va., just outside of Washington, D.C. The footprint of the 185,000-square-foot building is currently being laid on 84 acres of land that will be dedicated to preserving the Army’s story.
Completing this ambitious and historic project will require the support of the nation.
As we celebrate our nation’s independence, given birth on the battlefields of New England, remember that America’s museums are a reflection of our priorities. They show the pieces of our past that we treasure most. And there should be nothing more valuable to our nation than the memories of those who sacrificed their lives so that we could live in peace.