Remember that scene at the end of Indiana Jones where the Ark of the Covenant is boxed up and wheeled through an endless government warehouse? Did you know that that place actually exists? It is called the Center of Military History (above). It is located thirty minutes outside Washington, D.C., at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The building itself is very nondescript, but behind a series of highly alarmed doors and long, cement, camera-laden hallways, is the highly sophisticated, climate-controlled treasure room where the army keeps its most precious artifacts. The facility was built for $24 million in 2010. The cavernous warehouse is typically shrouded in total darkness. Motion lights illuminate only the areas in which someone is walking. Behind these giant doors lies the army’s historic collection of weaponry. The room consists of dozens of collapsable “hallways” filled with the richest American firearm collection on the planet. The collection is stacked with priceless items, including a one-of-a-kind boat gun that pre-dates the Revolutionary War. The entire collection can be moved at the press of a button to create new endless hallways of historic firearms.
Entire lineages of weapons are kept here for research as well as preservation purposes.
Another portion of the warehouse consists of endless rows of gigantic, airtight lockers. This is called “3D storage”. Every meaningful artifact that has been worn on a military battlefield is stored here. Including General Ulysses S. Grant’s Civil War cap, famous generals’ uniforms, and Revolutionary War powder satchels, flags, canteens, and cannons.
But the crown jewel of the collection is the sixteen thousand pieces of fine art the army owns. The art is kept on giant rolling metal frames (photo, below). The massive collection consists of donated and commissioned pieces. Much of the art was painted by soldiers who experienced their subjects in real life.
During World War One, the army began commissioning artists to deploy into the war zone and paint the scenes they observed. This practice has continued to this day. Much of the museum’s collection consists of these commissioned wartime pieces. The collection also keeps hold of valuable donated military art and historical pieces dating back to the Mexican-American War.
The art tells the story of America’s wars through a soldier’s unique perspective. Some works are just beautiful beyond words. Every aspect of war is captured in the collection. The collection also includes original Army propaganda art, including beautiful Norman Rockwell originals that the Army commissioned in the 1940s (immediately above). Virtually every American conflict is represented from a first-hand soldier’s perspective, including World War Two (painting by Lea, above), Vietnam, Desert Storm, humanitarian aid missions, and the conflicts of the 1980s. The collection also has a controversial side that has never been displayed:
Not a single piece in this massive collection is open to the public. Why is it kept under lock and key in a blackened warehouse? The simple answer is because there is no museum to house it. The entire collection could be made accessible to the public, if the funds for a museum could be raised.
The Army Historical Foundation is in charge of raising the funds for the museum. However, there are major fundraising hurdles to jump before the museum can be built. The foundation’s president recently told The Washington Post that they have raised $76 million of the $175 million required for the museum and predicts the museum could open in 2018. The plan is to build the museum at Fort Belvoir.
But until then…
Rico says it's like Monuments Men, only the real stuff...
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