Creating a full history of the Marine Corps | Arts & Entertainment

Creating a full history of the Marine Corps | Arts & Entertainment







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Recreation of a Fallujah street showing the environment for Marines on the ground




The National Museum of the Marine Corps opened two new galleries on Oct. 6. They tell the modern story of the U.S. Marine Corps from 1976 to  2021. When combined with the existing galleries, visitors receive a thorough history of the U.S. Marine Corps from its inception on November 10, 1775, to the present.  

The new galleries open on a chess board and an iron curtain to remind people of the state of the world after Vietnam.   

It’s “1976, we’re in a Cold War, but for the Marine Corps, the first major event is we sent peacekeepers to Beirut, Lebanon. On Oct. 3, 1983, a  Hezbollah operative drives a truck bomb into the battalion landing team, 1st Battalion Marines, headquarters/barracks, and blows it up, killing 241 Americans.” said Keil Gentry, director of the National Museum of the Marine Corps. “It’s a little bit echoey of current events.” 

The first gallery also covers the next 25 years, including the invasion of Grenada, Desert Shield, and Desert Storm, as well as humanitarian missions, including Haiti in 1994. The second gallery begins with 9/11.  

“We have a piece of the edifice of the Pentagon and an I-beam from the World  Trade Center. They’re two of the very few artifacts that we actually encourage people to touch. That is, for at least folks who were alive at that time, a defining moment in time. Poised over that is the F/A-18 Hornet,” said Gentry. “That was  part of a reserve squadron, and it was flying arms combat missions or patrols  over Washington, D.C., the day after 9/11.” 

The rest of the gallery covers Afghanistan and Iraq. Artifacts and elements in the gallery portray an insurgent attack on a base, a forward refueling station, and what it is like working in a desert sandstorm. This all leads to an Iraqi village where visitors follow Marines as they first enter the town down an alleyway.  







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Cast figure of Maj. Ret. David McGrath, USMC, positioned next to an M-ATV vehicle damaged by an IED in Afghanistan. McGrath was in the vehicle directly behind the M-ATV when the explosive device struck it.




“We have four different scenarios to give visitors an idea of how Marines react to different situations, everything from an empty room to weapons cache to civilians being there to encountering insurgents,” explained Gentry.

This is recent history, and the staff knows it can be difficult for some people. The staff and docents have been trained to identify struggling visitors.  

“It’s intervention training, so it’s to be able to identify somebody who’s in crisis,  how to approach that person, and then how to steer that person to break that moment or steer them to a respite room. It’s a quiet space, kind of zen-like, and so that’s available for them,” said Gentry. “Where we cover Afghanistan and  Iraq, we’ve recreated an Iraqi village. Everywhere else in the museum, we’ve used sight and sound to evoke emotion. Here, we’ve added a sense of smoke.  So we have a scent cannon, but we’ve got a warning there that lets folks know that, hey, it could be a trigger. So we actually have a detour, so somebody who’s  a little bit stressed can just bypass the village completely.” 

The museum is meant not just to tell a story but to build bridges. 







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“We use the artifacts to tell the Marine Corps story. It’s really a series of stories that help folks connect with who we are as a Marine Corps,” said Gentry. It is  also “a chance for veterans to reconnect and hopefully share their stories with  their families and friends.” 

The National Museum of the Marine Corps is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5  p.m., except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission and parking are free. While the museum is on government property, it is not on base, so there are no checkpoints for visitors to navigate. Hungry visitors have two options to grab a  meal on-site: the Devil Dog Diner, which has a mess hall atmosphere, and the  Tun Tavern, a sit-down restaurant reminiscent of an 18th-century tavern. 

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