Travel: The New Marines’ Museum
This Monday, November 13, 2006, the new National Museum of the Marine Corps Heritage Center opens in Quantico, Virginia, a 20-minute drive from Washington, D.C. Visitors to the 135-acre complex may be expecting an experience as somber as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and as buttoned up as a Marine dress uniform. If so, they’re in for a surprise.
Sure, there are plenty of sobering tributes to fallen heroes and Medals of Honor on display in the 118,000-square-foot space, but there are also innovative interactive exhibits and moments of humor that allow you to not only immerse yourself in the Marine Corps experience, but to actually—dare I say it—have some fun.
The striking 210-foot main building rises like a slanted pyramid, visible from Interstate 95 day and night. Its shape was inspired by that most iconic of World War II images, the second raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima, as immortalized in the Pulitzer-prize winning photograph by Joe Rosenthal. In fact, the museum’s logo shows the image of Rosenthal’s photo superimposed over the silhouette of the building, and the flag itself is on display inside. The twist is that the beaches of Iwo Jima are also simulated, right down to black sand made from pulverized tires.
The architects and designers of the museum were taken on an immersion tour of their own before getting down to the nuts and bolts of putting together the exhibit spaces. They visited a Marine boot camp, boarded a transport ship, and even toured Iwo Jima. To further authenticate the experience, they had actual Marines model for the castings of the figures displayed in the tableaus, all of which were painted by theatrical set designers. Set designers were also given the tasks of lighting the museum for dramatic effect and “aging” the artifacts in scenes to make them look believable. The museum’s opening exhibits focus on World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, in order to honor living veterans. Displays dedicated to earlier and more recent conflicts are in the planning stages.
The first interactive exhibit is a recreation of the infamous Marine boot camp initiation ritual—from both sides, raw recruit and blustery drill instructor—which fittingly greets visitors upon arrival at the museum. Moving along, the World War II Era Gallery recreates the landing at Iwo Jima, complete with a ride on an LCVP landing craft that shakes and rolls to conjure the feel of the ocean.
The Korean War Era Gallery begins with a 1950s classroom lesson on the Cold War and then deposits viewers into a scene from General Douglas MacArthur’s “End Run,” his pivotal landing at Inchon. Thoughtful attention is given to recreating the atmosphere (dark and cold) as members of Fox Company navigate the TokTong Pass just as the Chinese are about to begin their attack. The Korea gallery ends with a “containment box” used to hold POWs and designed to prevent them from either standing or sitting. Fortunately that part isn’t interactive; the box sits in the center of a dark room, surrounded by benches.
The Vietnam Era Gallery reproduces some of the varied terrain and experiences of that long conflict. Visitors walk through a thatched-hut village, “hump” through the jungle, and experience urban fighting in the city of Hue. The highlight of the gallery is the Hill 881 South exhibit, in which participants move through a real CH-46 helicopter fuselage and witness the thick of battle with mortar rounds hissing through the air.
If all that isn’t enough immersion for one day, there’s also a flight simulator and a target-practice range to try out. Also on view are nearly two 2,000 photographs, letters from the front, personal items, and uniforms. Audio streams of Marines recounting their experiences dovetail with documentary images from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam to immerse the visitor in the Marine experience. There is plenty for military-hardware enthusiasts to see, too: tanks, artillery pieces, weapons, and planes, among them a captured Japanese Kamikaze and an F4F-4 Wildcat.
Visitors will likely be hungry after such an intensive experience, which takes about three hours to do properly. Grub can be had at the Mess Hall, which strives to recreate the Marine dining experience, even down to the delicacy known as “S.O.S.” (s--- on a shingle), actually creamed chipped beef on toast. If that’s too much immersion, take your liberty and have a beer at Tun Tavern, a recreation of the pre-Revolutionary War Philadelphia tavern where the Marine Corps was founded.
The National Museum of the Marine Corps, at 307 5th Avenue in Quantico, Virginia, will be open every day except Christmas from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information visit www.usmcmuseum.org.