Family or been in the army themselves. We start the timeline for this exhibit with the spanishamerican war because thats when our collection had the very first recorded audio oral history of soldiers who actually experienced the war itself. Of course, the spanishamerican war, we have the title the great adventure because the army was not ready to go to war at this point in time. When the u. S. S. Maine exploded in havana harbor, everything came to a head and the war started in earnest. A lot of soldiers enlisted all at once. We didnt have any sort of going to war anyway, and then seeing the consequences of the spanish american war afterwards. Kind of fore shadowed the americans ability to fight war. So we start with the spanish american war and move on through and show different soldiers stories throughout the exhibit. The great part about these exhibits is that we can show different soldiers stories over time and switch them out very easily to get our massive collection of artifacts and stories through the exhibit. One of our very first soldier stories that we display is private john kentner. His extensive collection is kept in our storage facility. He was from pennsylvania. We have two pieces from his collection, the blouse that he wore during his service in the spanishamerican war. And the other is his 1884 trap door springfield rifle. Soldiers were eventually given much better weapons than this over time, but he kept eight really great diary. And were able to show his entire story throughout not only this exhibit but also our Archival Holdings of photographs, diaries, and manuscripts. We move from the spanishamerican war into the Philippi Philippi philippine insurrection which was kind of part of the spanishamerican war. Many of the soldiers who went over there kept war souvenirs. One great collection we have here of lieutenant hobbs, he went over. He had many different jobs while in the philippines but one thing was he collected weapons and various materials that various insurgency groups used against americans and friendly philippines. Its a bloody portion of our history but one that needs to be told. Some of our best collections are these insurgent weapons from the spanishamerican war and the philippine insurrection. Between the spanishamerican war and world war i, we sent many soldiers to the china relief expedition otherwise known as the boxer rebellion. In that time, we helped to secure peking later called bejing. It was one of the first examples of the American Army fights alongside other nations. It was the first Real International operation marked by american cooperation with other countries. One interesting piece that we have in our collections here at the Army Heritage and Education Center and is accessible, in this case is calvin titus. We won a medical of honor for daring and gallant conduct. He was one of the first soldiers who actually scale the walls of peking during the boxer rebellion. This will take you to a recording of his actual oral history. This is something that took place a long time ago, and its followed me. I cant get away from it. [laughter] but the wall looks like the one you scaled . Thats a very good representation of it. Of course, as you see that fellow standing on top there, now, that would have been impossible. That thing is stone and narrow on top and nobody could stand up there unless he was an acrobat. Did you have doubts or think you could make it . I thought id make it all right. I wasnt have afraid of that. I was a fairly good climber. But, of course i never thought about what i was getting into. [laughter] i understand that when president roosevelt presented you with the medal, it was on the grounds of west point. Yes. They turned up the grounds in full dress. I saw it was Teddy Roosevelt himself when i got up close. And they actually handed him the box the medal rather. He held the box himself. And he took it and started to pin it on my fulldress coat here. And he said to me, now, young man, dont let this give you a big head. [laughter] before world war i, there was the Mexican Border crisis where we fought against the outlaw poncho villa on the new mexico border with mexico. And, of course, we have material in our collections outlining what it might have been like to be a soldier in that troubled period between us and the mexicans. We have an amazing world war i collection, extremely expansive. Everything from soldiers diaries to photographs all the way up to the memoirs and diaries of generals. We also have a machine gun peeking over the top of a world war i trench. The war very quickly evolved into trench warfare as machine guns and artillery forced soldiers to fight with automatic weapons and artillery forcing them to into down into the trenches to avoid the weapon similars. A high explosive artillery shell in world war i made an enormous amount of noise when it explod exploded. Gas being mustard gas, chlorine gas, just to disable the soldiers and even kill them. So if a cannister went off near you, you needed to warn them. Now, this artifact right here is a wooden gas alarm. Normally, you would actually have it and take it above your head and swing it around. However, we bottle bolted it in for safetys sake, but you can hear the noise it makes. If you had those going off, everyone would know its time to mask up and get ready for the wind to push gas over the top of you. What we have right here is an excellent specimen of an ft17 french designed tank. It was built by the americans and used to train soldiers in france on how to drive and fire the main weapons on tanks. Remember, before this tank, there werent tanks. The british and germans had tanks but there were no tanks prior to this first generation of tanks. This piece right here is the tank that George Patton fell in love with. Of course, general patton went on to become the grandfather of american armor. And you can see its very similar to tanks we have in america nowadays. The one thing ill point out here, rather a few things, first, the treads themselves are very, very aggressive. You can see how the treads are designed to grip. The idea being that if this tank had to go down into an enemy trench line, it could pull itself up the other side. Further more, in the back, you can see a scoop. That was designed to steady the tank so it could go over longer and wider trench lines. This front road wheel is made of wood. The reason for that is at the time, the steel that could have been used for that front road wheel, there would be too much friction and it would heat up too fast and become brittle and possibly break. The strongest but most resilient material we had at the time was live oak. And we used live oak to build those front road wheels so this would be sturdy enough. We also have an extensive video collection. And a team of experts are able to curate and preserve these old tapes and digitize them. And these videos, of course, are of fp17s in action moving behind the lines getting ready to fight. After world war i, we entered a peace and hard times period. As the war died down and we started to reduce our forces, one of the big aspects of how the army was dealing with the interwar years and the progressive nature of some of the politicians was integrating the United States army. And over here, we have another soldier story. In this case, Brigadier General benjamin davis. He became the very first black general officer in the United States armys history. We have his entire collection here. As you can see here, it includes medals, ceremonial saber. He was very instrumental in the desegregation of the United States army. Soon the United States army entered world war ii. In this case, you can see a soldier with his backpack and duffel bag getting ready to go overseas to fight the german army or perhaps the japanese. You can see we had several different theaters in which they were shipping out to fight and each theater had its own uniform, tactics, and way of doing things. This is neat to show because it shows how the Army Heritage and Education Center has more than just uniforms and guns. Here we have specific items important to this time in the army. We have buttons that the private probably polished over days and nights for a great shine for inspections. You can see the belt that he probably strapped a pistol to when he went off to war. He was a military policeman so he also carried a whistle. And we have a little piece of material history in this military policeman in the whistle he used to issue commands and everything else. We have his training bulletin and pieces of material that he brought back from the war. Another aspect of our collections that are phenomenal and unmatched really anywhere else, are the art collections. We have a great deal of art work. Right here, you can see materials from Sergeant Dominick who brought sketch books and water colors with him to the fighting in world war ii specifically the philippines and various island campaigns. You can see those here. The beauty of these collections is it shows us how a soldier saw through his own eyes the fighting and the difficulties this soldier deals with in war. Through photographs, you see a still, sanitized image of the graham. Through the art work, you can actually see the feeling that the soldier has for that particular aspect of war. Another good collection we have here that weve seen a lot of soldiers stories for men. In this case, we have a woman who joined the army right before world war ii, captain hannah hussey. Quickly moved up to captain which was a high rank for a female at the time. She served in the very thick of things in combat hospitals throughout world war ii sometimes working upwards of 12hour shifts as a scrub nurse preparing materials for the surgeons to help save our soldiers coming back from the front lines wounded. After the war, she moved into the army reserve and then eventually actually fought in vietnam well, served as a nurse in vietnam and retired as a lieutenant colonel. We have our collections here including diaries, photographs, you can see her nurses uniform from world war ii here. Fantastic stuff to see. The entire story of a very strong woman in the United States army. Moving into the cold war and in this case, one aspect of the cold war is the korean war. Some people call it the forgotten war because its not really featured a lot in the media. But it was an undeclared war of Police Action as it was described at the time by some politicians. It was a fullon war. And as many other times in United States army history, the soldiers deployed to the war werent always given the right equipment and it got very, very cold in the winters and very, very hot in the summer and the soldiers soldiered on so to speak and held off the chinese in the north korean invasion over time. We have some really great artifacts from the collection. Of course, the cold weather is really one of the big aspects of the war itself, and in this case, you can see a field cap from the time and also what was called mickey mouse boots. They were able to keep soldiers feet warm and prevent frost bite, but they were difficult to wear, caused your feet to sweat, and sometimes that sweat froze. It made foot care very, very difficult in these cold conditions, but over time, soldiers figured out the tricks to keeping their feet warm. We also have one more soldier story in this exhibit. First, lieutenant harry lemai, enlisted during world war ii, and then ended up in the korean war, second infantry division. And you can see his uniform and purple heart from a gunshot wound during the korean war. One interesting aspect of the vietnam exhibit we have is the series of dangers of a soldier walking through the jungle in vietnam had to deal with. Mainly booby tracks. The soldier experience itself was fighting an elusive enemy, another insurgency so to speak. It shows every aspect of warfare from fight warfare from fighting in jungles, high lands, dry areas, it was every type of warfare. One of our very best soldier stories from vietnam is from joe newsome, captain joe newsome. A great friend of this facility in fact. He was a helicopter pilot and flew numerous missions over vietnam. You can see some part of of his collection here. We have his flight helmet, uniform, and, of course, his flight bag decorated with various unit insignias. You can see that First Cav Division there on the front. Another great part of captain newsomes collection thats absolutely invaluable is the film that he shot from the helicopter that he flew. He was a huey pilot, clipped up the camera in the main door of the huey itself and shot film of his mission. This gives you the ability to see what it would be like to be that door gunner actually in combat and flight running those missions. Its a viewpoint that very few people have ever actually seen. [gunshots] the cold war ends and we go in and fight dessecember des shield storm. We have the photographs, videos, oral histories from the soldiers on the ground in desert storm to fight the iraqi army. Weve seen a private soldiers story, a nurse soldiers story. This one here is a soldier story of a collection we have of a general fred franks. One interesting aspect of his career, of course a very wide and expansive career in the Army Commanding troops at every level, we have his prosthetic leg. He comes back routinely and we have his leg for him to see. But its an interesting piece because he lost his leg in cambodia during the vietnam war, and he was able to continue with his career with that prosthetic leg moving up through the ranks and becoming one of the most influential generals in the United States armys history. Of course, we moved into a peacetime army, post cold war all the way after desert storm and shield and through. We have conflicts in places like bosnia. But as we move through, we finally get to the war on terror. We are currently collecting materials from soldiers who are currently operating and recent veterans. If you know of anybody who has materials from their time in the United States army, this is the place for that material to go. It allows us to show every aspect of a soldiers life and allow the American People what it was like to be a soldier. In this case, we have the soldier story of specialist aguilar. We regularly change out his materials because our collection is extensive. Interesting piece up in the side there is his sonyerikson telephone. He used that phone to help do mathematics for targeting and windage and such for his sniper rifle. He told us on night missions, he didnt even use that telephone because of the light emitted from the phone itself. Little bits and pieces of the soldiers story just like that cellphone give us that whole view of the soldier and we can better understand the history of the United States army. You can see a piece right there, section of the improvised explosive device. Of course, one of the main concerns of soldiers in iraq and afghanistan was the ied. We have an exhibit over here put together by one of our Staff Members who actually was on an eod team in iraq. He was wounded by a sniper during a mission, but now he is one of our exhibit designers. And he put together this exhibit right here. This is different views of what he saw as an explosive ordnance soldier in iraq. You can see the different ways iraqis might build an ied. Those of us who are veterans of this war, these pieces right here really bring out a visceral reaction. We show off a l