How can we save our military historical museums?

PFC James (LURCH) Janota one of the best programs costs nothing. While serving in Northern NJ, schools there were in session on Veterans Day. They hosted a Veterans Day program that put three veterans (WWII/Korea era, Vietnam, Current Wars) in each classroom and fielded some well thought through questions from students for three sessions of 30-45 minutes. Faculty actually helped them Think through these questions. I brought some items like my body armor and other things they could pick up and touch. They ended with an assembly.

I suggest looking at the really high-quality museums as models or inspiration (which fits in with the consolidation/merger idea). For example, the Infantry museum at Fort Benning is really top-notch. One thing that I speculate might enhance the experience at a museum would be having knowledgeable veterans on hand to explain the artifacts and exhibits and do Q&A with visitors.

I concur with the good Major... teamwork's the answer. The "big picture" here is the loss of perspective resultant from what's arguably been fifty years of "introspection". No American war experience since WWII has emerged "unscathed"-and that's largely changing as well. There's no impetus to save this history, because everyone's too busy trying to figure out if they should or not. Still, if the varied and assorted groups attempting to do so would join forces, the task might be more manageable. My opinion is that we need to stop trying to segregate the experience of American veterans... I'm personally tired to the hilt of the way we are often our own worst enemies, trying to isolate ourselves by "our war", "our generation", "our experience". The only difference that should exist between a forty year old veteran who was sent to Afghanistan, a seventy-one year old veteran who was sent to Vietnam, and a ninety-six year old veteran who went to Germany is their age and life experience since. Instead, we have many OEF/OIF vets rejecting the "traditional" organizations (i.e. Legion, VFW, etc.) because they, "don't have the same culture", a few older veterans who ARE in those organizations treating the few newcomers like visitors from Planet X, and an increasingly larger group of current service members who see the whole mess as a waste of time unless it can help them with the VA. Until we re-forge some sense of pride in what we did for our country (more than seeking venues for expressing what we may have experienced ourselves)... I think it will be hard to find advocates willing to put in the hours and effort to "save" history.