honor & pride: national museum of the marine corps
Former Marine Gwenn Adams Discusses The Cornerstone Of Duty & Remembrance During IPW Confab At Triangle, Virginia Location
Honor and pride is the cornerstone of any good museum but getting the facts down to the essentials of detail is exceptionally important. The Museum Of The Marine Corp is the uber-directed representation of that. Between actually used vehicles to real artifact display to direct cast figures from actual Marines, it is all about the facts. Former Marine and Head Of Public Affairs Gwenn Adams sat down with MRV The Buzz Editor In Chief Tim Wassberg inside the museum during IPW to discuss her journey, the connectivity of stories and giving the next generation the right to their own decisions.
The Buzz: How do you define a museum that is indicative of the Marine mindset and experience? How do you define how becomes?
Gwenn Adams: For a retired Marine [like myself] and for so many Marines who come here, for lack of a better term, this is sort of their Mecca. They come here and it's their history. It's their story. They feel at home. You'd be amazed how many times we get emails from people saying, "Thank you. I now understand my father, my brother, my husband because they talk about things here that they never talked about before." I brought my granddaddy [here] before I ever knew that I would work here. He served in the Pacific in World War II so he didn't talk a lot about his service. Even to me or to any of my Marine friends, he just didn't talk a lot about it. I knew a few things. But I brought him here before I ever knew I would work here [because] I wanted to share this place with him. And we were going through the World War II [exhibit] and there's a video where PFC Sledge is talking about the stench of the blood and the bodies on the beaches. And granddaddy turned as white as a sheet and he said, "I can smell it." For me, that was a moment with my granddaddy. I understood so much...where his heart and his sort of soul opened at that one moment. The Buzz: Wow GA: [Another time] I was walking back in one day and there were four males, two little boys, a man about my age and a man in his probably late 70s and the little boys are jumping around and they're going, "Pap, Pap, that's so cool. I didn't know you did all those things." And the man my age turned to the older man and hugged him and he said, "Thanks, dad. I had no idea."
The Buzz: That's when it really hits home.
GA: And for me I mean it's one of the most well-done museums I've ever been to. We have two former Disney Imagineers on staff. So you know they're perfectionists and Marines are perfectionists so you know it's going to be a good museum.
The Buzz: Could you talk more about the immersive experience because the smells, the feelings, the tastes...it becomes an active psychological thing and that's a really interesting way to do it.
GA: So when you're in World War I [exhibit] and you're watching the movie of the Battle of Belleau Wood [in France]...the Marines are charging across the wheat field at you and you can hear the rounds whizzing through the trees and overhead and smell the cordite in the air...I mean...you're there. We invited the director of the cemetery at Belleau Wood here when we opened that gallery because we had established a relationship with him going over and studying [that battle] so that we would get it exactly right. And he brought his son who has never lived anywhere except France and he was watching the video and he goes, "I know where that is. I know where that is." Because he thought we had filmed at Belleau. We had actually filmed at a wheat field in Fieldton, Virginia but that's how meticulous we are about getting it just right.
The Buzz: Can you talk about attention to details even with the vehicles and aircraft here in the atrium.
GA: Well, all the aircraft and vehicles you see here in the main Leathernut Gallery have all been meticulously restored. In some cases, I'd almost swear they'd still fly. And most of that work has been done by our own restoration team.
The Buzz: Because they're Marines and they want perfection...
GA: A lot of them are Marines, yep. And then once you go into the galleries, inside the Korea [exhibit], the immersion there talks about time passing so it's 10 degrees colder in there than anywhere else in the museum. There's lots of Marines talking about what's happening to them, on Tok Ton Pass. We've had Korean War veterans that won't go in there. They never want to be that cold again in their lives so they will not go in that part.
The Buzz: Myself and my writers have done some pieces World War II museum and I have done interviews with some surviving World War II veterans, the ones that are still alive...the oral history of maintaining their stories is so important --
GA: So important.
The Buzz: There are obviously some great stories here. But which ones have touched you?
GA: My Granddaddy. That's a personal one for me. But other stories...we've had people come in here and look at these pictures around the wall and everybody says, "Oh, that's me, that's me." But the guy in one picture in the atrium came in and he said, "That's me." And we said, "No. We know who that is." And he said, "No, that's me." And he showed us the scar on his neck. And he had the same scar. When things like that happen in a place, it's almost magic. And then again, in World War II, we have an Academy Award that Norm Hatch, he was a Marine, and he was a videographer, and he filmed the landing on Tawara.
The Buzz: That's another thing, also -- movies are movies, real life is real life. Can you talk about keeping the detail real.
GA: All of our cast figures are cast from real Marines...because if we cast them from real Marines, we don't have to tell them how to stand. In front of us are all infantry Marines there. And so they instinctively know how they're going to hold that weapon, where they would be in that scenario. The other thing that speaks to that is that a Marine is the same in World War II, in Vietnam and today. A Marine is a Marine. It's the same ethos, it's the same pride, it's the same job. I mean, is the weaponry better? Heck, yeah. Is the COM better? Heck, yeah. But it's still the same job. And it's so funny because now our Marines are up there [above us] doing security. But they used to be at the front desk greeting our visitors and even doing security, we get some of the older guys coming in here and saying, "You are too young to be a Marine" when in reality, they lied about their age and then went to war at age 15.
The Buzz: I mean are the visitors allowed to talk to some of these Marines on station here?
GA: All the time. And these Marines here, let me tell you what. If an honor flight comes in, or a Marine comes in wearing a World War II cover or Korean War cover, these Marines are going to go up them and shake their hand and thank them because we wouldn't be here without that generation.
The Buzz: What made you want to become a Marine?
GA: Honestly, it started out because I couldn't afford college. And I thought about the other services and I was talking to an Army recruiter and left there and the Marine recruiter said, "Come here. You don't want to get out now." Then I thought about the fact that my Granddaddy had been a Marine, and if I was going to do anything -- okay, and this is going to sound like such a Marine thing to say, because it is – but if I was going to do it, I was going to go do the best there is.
The Buzz: Now did you have the ambition for what you were setting as a goal?
GA: So, when I first went into the Marine Corps, I was a communications person. I carried around a PRC-77 radio on my back because I told my recruiter I wanted to be in communications. I meant mass communications but he put me in COM, all right. (laughing) So after about two years, I said, "I can't do this anymore because you're cleaning the same piece of radio week, after week, after week. COM is an important MOS, don't get me wrong. One of the most important but I transferred over to the public affairs side and so that's what I did for the most of my 14 years in the Corps was PR. Then I got out, moved to Florida, raised kids for that whole 13 years. Once my kids were all raised, I said, you know what, I really want to go home to Virginia, because this is where I'm from. So 13 years to the day of my last day of active service, I came back to the Corps and I've been here almost 9 years now.
The Buzz: The museum covers from the inception of the Marines to a certain time period....
GA: To the end of Vietnam.
The Buzz: But you guys are building more.
GA: We're doubling in size. And I'm so excited about that part because this is my museum. But we're building my history now. I joined the Corps in 1981, so this is my history. And there's no place else that I know of that is telling this history right now. One of the things that excites me so much about this final phase is that we're presenting the facts. Beirut, the Beirut bombing. Somalia –- [the time period of] 1976 to 2014 – so the Beirut bombing, the first bombing of the World Trade Centers, the Murrah Building, Somalia, Desert Shield/Desert Storm...all of those things. And we're presenting the facts. We get about 60,000 students through here a year in organized groups. They're getting the facts and they can make their own decisions. The media is a great machine, but they don't always get the facts right.
The Buzz: If you don't mind me asking, a lot of the data and a lot of photos here... these are all official material coming from the Marine Corps, right? All the stuff we're seeing is actual?
GA: It's fact.
The Buzz: I'm also talking about the actual artifacts...
GA: Yes. What you see here in the museum, in very very few instances are there replicas. It's the actual artifact. Anything that's in the case is the actual artifact. When you go into Vietnam and you go through the CH46 Helicopter on to Hill 881 you'll know that it's the real thing because you can still smell the engine oils and all the smells that would have been in the 46. You still smell it because you can't get [that smell] out. And so for me, the students being able to see the facts and make their own decisions. They are our future leaders. And so [with this museum] we're telling them here: “you make the decisions”. We're not basing it on one way or the other. You make the decision. Here it is. For me, that's huge.
The Buzz: You mentioned that you have both flags from Iwo Jima. I mean that, to me, I'm like, "Wow. Okay. That's something. That's something vital." That's like history incarnate.
GA: Well, those flags, before the museum was built, they just took those out and put them up at Marine Corp birthday celebrations and that kind of thing. They didn't, at first, realize how iconic those flags were going to become. And so now that they're in our collection we can preserve them in perpetuity. And generation after generation will be able to see those and understand that pride and what those flags did for the Marines on that island. I mean not only did it galvanize the US and war bond effort and all of that stuff but for those Marines on that island they saw those flags go up and they knew that there was hope. And it gave them the courage to keep fighting. And we have both of those flags.
The Buzz: That leads to my last question because I love what you just said. Because no matter what's going on in Washington, or whatever, it's all about hope, about just moving forward. And that's the education part of this, showing people just how important these men, these women are, but also what they do for the country. Can you sort of talk about what you like to impart in terms of education to this next generation coming in?
GA: Well, when you think about it, the children –- the kids that are graduating from high school now, for the most part, have never known a country not at war. And so when they come here with everything that's going on in our political climate and all of that, it's easy to get discouraged. But when you come here and you see that generations of men and women have been willing to lay their life on the line for this country, whether they agreed with every political decision or not, [you understand] it's their country. And they're willing to lay their life on the line to defend it and say, "This is my country and I will do what it takes." They don't always agree. I mean I can't tell you how many times we hear political comments from young and old here..and that's okay.
The Buzz: It's America.
GA: It's America, right. And you know what? The Marines who fought and died, fought and died for everybody's right to feel however they want to feel about this country. But you walk away from here with the respect for them. Regardless of what you think of the politics of today, you walk away from here with the respect for those who were willing to lay their life down for their country.
Tim Wassberg
A graduate of New York University's Tisch School Of The Arts with degrees in Film/TV Production & Film Criticism, Tim has written for magazines such as Moviemaker, Moving Pictures, Conde Nast Traveler UK and Casino Player. He enjoys traveling and distinct craft beers among other things.
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