Airborne and Special Operations Museum

After my run in yesterday, I was able to get some diesel at a good price at another location.  I then took a drive over to the Airborne and Special Operations Museum based on two recommendations.  

They were not wrong, the museum was great.  It provides a lot of detail in the formation of Airborne and Special Operations from WWII through today.  There were some exhibits from WWII and D-Day that talked about the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles.  My great uncle George Koskimaki jumped in with the Screaming Eagles and was General Maxwell Taylor’s radioman.  He’s written multiple books on the experience and time in Europe.  

The museum runs chronological to the formation of Airborne and Special Operations of today.  There were about six of us who walked it in reverse.  The displays are really well thought out and look pretty realistic.  There was a grandfather with his Vietnam Veteran hat on who was near me with his grandson who was in his teens.  We were by the Huey exhibit.  (Door gunner, soldier jumping out the door, casualties on the ground in front of the helicopter, etc.). The grandfather got choked up as the teenager was looking and taking photos.  He said something along the

lines of this is where it got real.  

There’s so much more to talk about from the two hours at the museum but I won’t go on forever.  There’s a wall at the museum, it’s out in the back courtyard.  It is made up of colored dog tags of the 7,000 plus soldiers killed from 9/11 through 2018.  It will be leaving the museum soon to add more names by moving the tags that are already on there.  I stopped by the walk and paused for a few minutes with some U.P. Heroes and a few guys I didn’t know who mean a lot to some of my good friends.