By Leslie Kelly
It’s home to two Congressional Medals of Honor, an early 1902 uniform from a World War I veteran, a Korean War chaplain’s kit, the lead from Vietnam Veteran Randy Ransom’s war dog Hasso, and a 40-foot by 60-foot American Flag that flew on the USS Lincoln during its mission to Iraq.
But if you talk to any of the veterans who volunteer at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis, they’ll tell you that the museum is home to something much more important.
It’s home to the idea that veterans “shall not be forgotten.”
“That’s the real reason we’re here,” said Chip Duncan, museum director. “We’re here to remember veterans and the service they gave.”
The museum has 9,000 square feet of space in which there are 85 eight-foot tall display cases filled with important historical artifacts, all donated to the museum by veterans and their families.
But its beginning was much more humble.
According to Duncan, Lee Grimes, an area resident, began having a special event at his church each year for veterans.
“It was just a way to say thank you to them,” Duncan said. “They’d play music and tell some stories.”
After hearing the veterans tell their stories, Grimes decided that he’d better start writing things down. He began interviewing veterans and collecting artifacts.
Soon he had so much that he wanted to begin a museum. So in 1997, he found an old electronic appliance store that had closed and “put the items out on display, plugged in a coffee pot, and opened the museum,” Duncan said.
It was about a quarter of the space the museum has now. But it was a place that veterans felt safe coming to, to socialize and talk with other veterans.
“Someone would bring in cookies and there was a card table and people would gather,” Duncan said.
Over time the museum outgrew the storefront and in 2005, a successful fundraising campaign meant a new home for the museum. The museum has been at its current location since then. The new place allows for more displays and a larger “USO” or gathering place for veterans to talk.
There is a library where anything military can be researched and there is a small military vehicle display outside. And there is some space for storage of exhibits that can be rotated out to the museum floor.
Everything in the museum has been donated, Duncan said, who has been director since 2010 when Grimes retired.
“We are a nonprofit, so we don’t have the money to buy anything,” he said. “And we don’t turn anything away.”
That’s out of respect to veterans and their families who offer their mementos and artifacts to the museum, be they a uniform, a diary, a weapon, letters, photographs or medals.
The museum is organized chronologically, beginning with the Revolutionary War through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are displays that honor chaplains, women in the military, military war dogs and the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
The first exhibit is a wooden cabinet that the shop teacher at Centralia High School made back in the 1940s. It houses a list of all thelocal graduates who fought in World War II.
Their names were written in calligraphy by the math teacher and each name has the year the student graduated and their branch and rank in the military. Some even bear Gold Stars, denoting that they were killed in action.
Included is the name of Donald Rombalski, who joined the Navy at age 17 and was on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Rombalski also is remembered in the museum with a display of his Purple Heart and the telegrams sent home to tell his family of his death.
The story of the wooden display case is a lot like the story of some veterans, Duncan said. It was forgotten and was set to be thrown out when the old school was torn down. But it was saved and given a place of honor in the museum.
“This is our story,” he said. “We tend to forget our veterans.”
Another exhibit is dedicated to Cpl. Henry Casey, who fought at the battle of Vicksburg in the Civil War and carried weapons and ammunition to Union troops on a make-shift raft across water while being shot at. For this he received the Congressional Medal of Honor and it was donated to the museum by his family.
Toward the end of the walk through the museum, is a display dedicated to Jeff Shaver who died in Iraq in 2004. He was an Army National Guardsmen who was working as a medic when he was hit with an IED while delivering medical supplies to a women’s clinic. He was the only person who died when the vehicle was hit.
His mother, who lives in Black Diamond, said he wanted to be a emergency medical technician since he was a Boy Scout. The exhibit includes his Boy Scout uniform along with his Army dress uniform and the memorial program from his funeral.
Duncan said there are about 30 veterans who volunteer at the museum. They take people on tours, help out at the gift shop and clean. Even Grimes, who started the museum, still volunteers.
“He’ll come by and chat with whoever is here and then he’ll clean the floors or the bathrooms,” Duncan said.
Visitors to the museum can tour themselves, or volunteers will take them through. There is also an audio tour for visitors with use on an MP3 player.
“Each exhibit has it’s own story and each of us may tell the stories a bit differently,” Duncan said. “The important thing is that their stories are being told.”
Although he didn’t serve in the military, Duncan comes from a family of veterans. Because of his health, he couldn’t serve, he said.
“I had all intentions of serving,” he said. “My dad was in the Air Force in World War II and his dad was in the Infantry in World War I. But I had childhood asthma and couldn’t.”
As for the museum, Duncan welcomes any artifact, letter, photograph, weapon, or uniform from any veteran.
And there’s one thing he hopes to get.
“I’d love to have a Japanese uniform from Word War II,” he said. “We have rain gear that is made of palm leaves sewn together. And we have other (Japanese) things that veterans brought back from the war. But we’ve never gotten a uniform worn by a Japanese soldier.”