National Infantry Museum honors American soldiers

COLUMBUS, Ga. — There are telling moments to be found in the new National Infantry Museum just outside Fort Benning. One is inside a re-created Vietnam jungle exhibit, a dark and moist place of near stifling humidity. Helicopter sounds throb overhead, and veterans’ voice-overs on small video screens provide commentary on the horrors of battle.

Watching on a day I visited were fresh-faced young infantrymen, somberly taking in the images of war far from the grounds upon which they hone their battle skills at Fort Benning, site of the US Army Infantry School. The soldiers watched silently, separated from the soldiers on the screens by 45 years but forever connected by the shared purpose of mission and duty.

The US infantryman finally has his due in this museum, a $100 million facility that opened last year (2009), with Colin Powell, former secretary of state and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, giving the keynote speech.

“This site is much more than a mere memorial, and the word museum is entirely inadequate to describe it,’’ said Powell, who trained at Fort Benning as a young officer. “It is the only attraction in the country to tell the story of the infantry from the perspective of the soldier.’’

The museum, with a large rotunda entryway and a towering stone column topped by a charging bronze infantryman, is nearly 200,000 square feet of exhibit, classroom, and attraction space. It is full of thousands of artifacts that trace the history of the US Infantry since its beginning 235 years ago.

The most moving exhibit would seem to be the first, “The Last Hundred Yards,’’ a slightly inclined, enclosed space of 300 feet. A longheld military concept is that the last 100 yards of any battle belong to the infantrymen who must charge that last, dangerous span to finish the battle.

It is the museum’s signature exhibit, with lifelike scenes from eight major infantry battles, starting with the American Revolution and finishing with Operation Desert Storm. Here are small reenacted battle dioramas that feature cast figures of infantry soldiers bearing authentic weapons, a World War II glider, and Huey helicopter. Haunting music from the Mel Gibson movie “We Were Soldiers’’ filters down from above.

Here you will see World War I doughboys on rubble-strewn streets, old war footage playing on broken buildings. There is an Army paratrooper displayed at the recapture of Corregidor in 1945, war film playing within his parachute, and across from that, soldiers scaling a rock wall at Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, with vintage film played upon it. Just up the walkway is a display of bayonet-bearing infantrymen at Millett’s bayonet attack in the Korean War, and beyond that a Huey helicopter landing in a Vietnamese field.

Beyond “The Last 100 Yards’’ are displays of training of modern infantrymen, with exhibits of weaponry and a massive blue-lighted display, “Today’s Commitment,’’ showing where infantrymen are found around the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, Kosovo, the Philippines, Germany, and Italy.

Downstairs are six massive exhibits, The Era Gallery, starting with “Securing Our Freedoms (1607-1815) and ending with “The Sole Superpower’’ (1989-present). It is a largely apolitical showing of the United States’ military might throughout the ages, with a stunning assortment of war memorabilia.

In the World War II exhibit portion of “A World Power’’ (1920-47), for example, you will see such spoils of war as Nazi commander Hermann Goering’s jewel-encrusted baton and a burned copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,’’ with the Nazi leader’s speeches raging on a loudspeaker as he whipped up the winds of hate and war.

There is also a bronze bust of Hitler on display here that Allied troops modified into a trash can, an epaulet from the uniform of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, and Japanese samurai swords. In “The Cold War’’ gallery are massive chunks of the Berlin Wall.

Other “wow moment’’ memorabilia include the service cap and ribbons of the most decorated soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy, and the original letter from General Omar Bradley, his “Top Secret Orders of the Day, June 4, 1944,’’ two days before the invasion of France. In it he tells soldiers of the 1st Army they are about to be part of “the greatest amphibious operation ever undertaken by any army’’ and that “the future of this war, the future of our country depends on your success.’’ Next to it is a letter from Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower telling soldiers, “We will accept nothing less than full victory,’’ which history shows is what was achieved.

Also in the museum’s grand hall is the “Hall of Valor,’’ a glass-enclosed space dedicated to nearly 1,500 Medal of Honor recipients from the Army Infantry, each honored by a small plaque on the walls. A computer kiosk allows visitors to look up full citations for each honoree.

Outside the museum proper, the homage to the infantryman continues at the five-acre parade field with grandstand seating for 2,100. Within the ground is soil taken from battlefields in each of the country’s wars, from Yorktown through Afghanistan, the soil spread by descendants of those who fought in those wars, or veterans of more recent ones.

The facility first hosted the infantry graduation on its parade grounds last year. Jerry A. White, a retired Army major general and president of the National Infantry Association, said then: “When these young men march proudly past us they will be literally walking on the same soil as where their forefathers fought and died. It is a tangible connection to the legacy they have just joined.’’

Just beyond the parade ground is “World War II Street,’’ a collection of vintage buildings from Fort Benning, two of which were used by General George S. Patton Jr. before he left for the North African campaign in World War II.

There had been a museum at Fort Benning, but it was a makeshift one housed in an old hospital building, said Cyndy Cerbin, director of communications. The city of Columbus was instrumental in making the museum happen, she said.

“City fathers said they needed to think big and they did,’’ she said. “Many feel this museum is Smithsonian quality.’’

It also features an IMAX theater and full-service restaurant.

The museum is a unique partnership of the nonprofit National Infantry Association Foundation and the Army, the former managing the facility, the latter owning all the artifacts. A National Armor Museum is in the works, Cerbin said, which could coincide with the Army’s armor school moving to Fort Benning from Fort Knox, Ky.

The National Infantry Museum is a place at once chilling and uplifting, testimony to the horror of war and the courage of the infantry. Visitors may find themselves walking through it with a sense of national pride.

“This is what we owe to those who went before,’’ Powell said at last year’s dedication ceremony. “This is the place. This is the home. This is their legacy.’’