Musings from the Gordon Browning Museum

I am very proud of how our new war memorial in the museum has turned out and what it means.

The collection of uniforms, medals, relics, gear, trophies and souvenirs had accumulated over a long period of time. To me, in the beginning, it seemed like an overwhelming chaotic spread, filled to the gills with an abundance of items intermingled with unrelated things. It seemed claustrophobic and musty, with a dark vibe. I was seeing the surface at face value. It was a big pile of stuff. I did not truly understand or appreciate how many lives these things represented in so many ways.

The first task at hand was to pull everything out and clean it. We had to find a way to get from piled and cluttered to finding some kind of order. It seemed like an impossible task. As we were clearing and cleaning, we used the big double desk as a workstation to work through the several dozens of uniforms.  We used soft brushes and hand vacuums to remove the dust to put them back in good order.

As we handled each one, we realized how well-made they were, with the quality of rich pure wool and heavy cotton fabrics used to make them. These garments were made to hold up under the worst conditions of war. Many had been worn by people that I had grown up knowing. Soon, it was more than just a cleaning task. It became an act of respect as the focus came to the service and sacrifice of those that had worn each piece.

After tending the uniforms, there was the task of going through items saved by veterans and families of those who didn’t make it back home. Handling these things of war gave me a deeper understanding and awareness of what war really is — and its true cost. Soldiers by nature are required to be committed and obedient, at great personal cost. Some of them, too many of them, have paid the ultimate cost. The more that I handled their things, the more I felt affected. I would go home thinking about what conditions they had to endure. I thought about how homesick they must have been, how they had to keep going no matter what, and the peril they faced constantly. I thought of their existence in terrible weather and even worse conditions. I thought of what they had to see and do and how it must have been a burden they carried lifelong if they were fortunate enough to get back home to something near a normal life.

People had brought the things from their loved ones who had served. They brought them to help the community remember who they were and what they did for all of us. We tried to keep the collection of each person together rather than it all being scattered. Some of them had a large box of various items, while others might just have a thing or two. It was important to do the best we could to present these things that had been used for our protection at great cost.

There is one young soldier that I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about. He was so young—just barely older than my 17-year-old grandson. There is a picture of him with his dog in front of the house on what seemed to be a happy day. There is his high school graduation picture and program. There are his letters saying he is waiting for a letter from home and sure would like for them to send him a candy bar. There is the dreaded telegram with the follow up letter from the war department. There is the document of appreciation signed by FDR himself. There is the information about his interment in Belgium, and later his coming home to Mount Olivet here in McKenzie. There is his purple heart. There is his last letter that says he is still looking forward to that candy bar. He was so young. He will always be the true cost of war.

We must carefully preserve their things with true reverence, tell their stories of perseverance and sacrifice and recognize the grief of loss. My gratitude has come to a new level. Let’s take this Memorial Day to remember their service.

Visit the Gordon Browning Museum and Library, located at 640 North Main St., McKenzie, Tenn. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.