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Where We Have Been
At the age of ten, Dann Spear,
founder of the Museum of the Forgotten Warriors,
started collecting military memorabilia, patches and
photos from his friends to whom he wrote while they
served in the Viet Nam War. In 1965 he had a dream
of someday having a museum to honor veterans who
served. He was invited to a reunion of World War II
Veterans of the “Flying Tigers-AVG” who flew in
China, and was given a photo from Tex Hill, a
squadron leader and fighter ace. It was signed “To
my young friend, Danny,” and he included a note
saying that he hoped the picture would make a nice
addition to his museum. As early as 1966, Dann’s
dream had been formulated. Dann continued to
collect personal photos and stories from veterans,
and set up display at conventions and museums.
Dann and his
wife, Roberta, moved to Marysville in 1977. In 1981,
after displaying portions of his collection
throughout Northern California, he and his good
friend, John Showers, began work on what was to be
the first museum building. The official opening was
in January, 1985, with Brigadier General Don Matson
in attendance as the guest speaker.
The
response since the opening has been tremendous, with
a second and third wing added to the museum between
1985 and 2003. The over 46,000 artifacts in it have
continued to grow. The items range from tanks,
cannons, and helicopters, to the oldest a relic, a
remnant of a blanket from Colonel Galbraith’s
great-grandfather, who had the blanket when he was
captured by the British in the Revolutionary War.
Dann has a brick that was sent to him by Master
Sergeant Roscoe Presley, from a building that was
taken by the Americans from the Taliban during
Operation Enduring Freedom. All of the displays
represent a personal tribute to each person who has
served our great nation throughout our history.
Personal letters to Dann from friends in Viet Nam
are displayed as well as uniforms, equipment,
photos, papers and relics that have been dug up from
the ground after battle. He also has full sized
mannequins dressed in enemy uniforms.
The Museum
of the Forgotten Warriors continues to grow and now
is established as a non-profit corporation with a
501c(3) tax-exempt status. At the urging of many
people, Dann had decided to expand the museum once
again and add a new library center. Since 1985, Dann
and Roberta have financed and built the museum and
additions without any financial aid or monetary
donations, and have kept it open to the public free
of charge. Now that the museum is tax-exempt, the
museum Board of Directors may accept donations to
build the proposed 6000 square foot addition and
library center that will be overseen by its Board of
Directors. The Board will ensure that the museum
remains an asset to Northern California, its
veterans and their families.
Where We Are Going
On Memorial
Day 2007, the museum had a groundbreaking ceremony
for its new addition, a 6,000 sq foot wing which
will house exhibit space and a library center. For
the first time in its more than 20 years, the museum
is accepting donations specifically to fund this
expansion. Please visit out
EVENTS page to see
pictures of the groundbreaking and visit our
SUPPORT
page to see how you can help us move into our next
phase.
THE
MUSEUM IN THE NEWS
Veterans
Day 2007
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/onset?id=54897&template=article.html
Torch of
freedom
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/onset?id=54897&template=article.html
Note: The items here
have been condensed for space. Some of the facts
have changed somewhat, notably that the museum now
takes cash donations, and there have been multiple
additions to the original building. An entirely new
additional building is also currently in the works.
March
2003
A maze of
glass displays snakes through the two rooms of the
museum. Mannequins display uniforms worn during
different eras... almost every inch of museum wall
is covered with pieces of military history. A row of
helmets is interspersed with grenades and canteens.
On the north and south walls of the main room are
the "walls of honor," with closely placed, framed
photos of veterans. Each one is personally signed.
Some of the shots are formal military photos with
men and women in full uniform. Others are photos of
unshaven soldiers out in the field or resting on
military vehicles. A new addition to the collection
is a long-sleeved shirt with American stars and
stripes. Spear explained that the shirt arrived
three weeks ago and was signed by soldiers in
Afghanistan.
Spear was
too young to fight in Vietnam, but he had friends in
high school who fought in the war. he said he
started his collection after Vietnam veterans
returned from the war and were personally
disparaged. He said a friend came home in a
wheelchair and had a war protester spit in his face.
"They don't deserve that," Spear said. That anger
was misdirected, and those who disagreed with the
war should have voted to change things, he said,
rather than blame those who served. His museum
represents the individual stories of the people who
fought in those wars, he explained. These
people deserve respect and recognition for the jobs
they did.
One of
the main themes in the collection is framed collages
by veterans. The soldiers' name, rank, and
military unit is typed out, as well as any statement
the veteran wanted to include. Most have photos and
other memorabilia, such as service patches, medals
and military pins. Spear said that there is a
powerful feeling that seeps over people when they
view the objects that were part of a person's time
in the military. Walking throughout the
display, Spear stopped frequently to point out one
soldier's' story, then another, and yet another.
James
Marsh's contribution to the museum was 13 baggies of
different types of soil. In November 2001 Marsh
revisited Vietnam and collected a little bit of
earth at each of the locations where he had been in
battle.
Joe
Langdell was on the U.S.S. Arizona when Pearl harbor
was bombed. He returned on the 60th anniversary of
the attack. Oil from the Arizona still bubbles from
the wreckage and folks the droplets "the tears."
When Langdell visited he filled a container with
some of the water and sent it to the museum with a
photo of him holding it.
One frame
contains a picture of a young serviceman sitting in
an airplane, his rifle resting between his knees.
His smile shows the gap between his two front teeth.
Another photo shows the man blindfolded and being
led away by enemy soldiers. A yellow telegram
is at the the top of the collage, given the news
that Sergeant First Class Michael Milner's name was
not among the list of captured servicemen submitted
at a Paris negotiation.
Spear
said he started collecing war memeontos when he was
a young boy. Over time he added to teh display and
opened the musuem officially in 1985. Word of mouth
spread and now he gets thigns shipped to him from
all over the world.
Thsi week
15 veterans showed up "just to hang out," Spear
said. They liked to look at other people's
astorie sand refelct upon theiw own expereinces.
"One fellow decribed it as the keeper of their
souls, a place they don't like to look at. It means
a lot ot them."
That
night an airman came by. He was about to be shipped
out and brought a jar of sand that had been through
Desert Storm, Spear said.
May 198
Dedicated
to veterans of the Vietnam War, the small museum
outside of Marysville in Yuba County returns names
and faces to those forgotten warriors. It provides a
repository for their memories and mementos. And it
reminds all the visitors that once upon a time
existed a piece of hell called Vietnam. "This
is pretty heady stuff," murmurs the museum's curator
and founder, Dann Spear. he guides a visitor through
a maze of glass cases crammed with photos, news
clipping, letters, patches, insignias, weapons,
books and dolls from Vietnam. Most were donated by
veterans or their families. Spear arranged each
soldier's memorabilia around a photograph and a
typed story, then displays it in no particular
order. "It's like th ewar," he said "The war was
cluttered. The war made no sense."
Spear
points to a utility belt in a display case of North
Vietnamese weapons and uniforms. Army veteran Joe
Fegan brought it to Spear last year He had taken it
from a soldier he had shot, the only person in the
war he knew he killed. The soldier was Fegan's age,
fighting the same awful war in the jungle. By donating the
belt, Fegan hoped to stop the nightmares that still
haunted him. "I feel like I let the spirits go," he
told Spear later.
Spear
graduated from high school the year the Vietnam War
ended. When his friends came home, one by one, they
didn't want to talk. No one threw them parades or
called them heroes. Spear decided he would
create a tribute. He began collecting weapons,
uniforms and patches from the Vietnam War.
Veterans
friends helped him acquire a tank and two
helicopters displayed on the lawn of the acre lot,
beside a plaque reading "Lest we forget."
Spearhimself often walks around the museum,
rereading a letter from a veteran who called him
"the keeper of our souls," looking at a pink helmet
donated by a nurse who unofficially flew helicopters,
marveling at the youth of the faces in the photos.
"After a bad day at work," he say "I'll come out
here and talk to old friends."
January
1985
Ever
since he became freinds and began corresponding with
some American soldiers servng in Vietnam, Dann Spear
ahs wanted to show the veterans that "some of us
remember." Saturday, he realized that dream with the
official opening of his "Museum of the Forgotten
Warriors'" Spear has converted a garage in his
Linda home into a small museum housing the extensive
collection of artifacts he has gathered in
the last few years. They include uniforms,
spatches, pins, pistols, rifles (including some
handmade Vietnamese weapons), and other memorabiliia
from the conflict. The museum opening was
preceded by several short speeches and a
flag-raising ceremony performed by an honor guard
from Viet Vet House in Sacramento. Once inside,
veterans and their families wandered slowly through
teh narrow isles, carefully examining the objects on
display "There's a lot of memories in tehre, myman"
was one of the comments by an honor guarrd members
leavign themuseum. For Spear, the gratitude he
receives from veterans is payment enough- he does
nto accept monetary donations.
April
1993, from teh Beale Air Force Base Newspaper
While
driving down North Beale Road, we've all probably
seen the sign for the Museum of the Forgotten
Warriors, a museum dedicated to the men and women
who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and
Desert Storm, but how many of us have bothered to
stop? Well, I did once, a little over six years
ago, but the significance of the place didn't hit me
then. I stopped at the museum again a couple
of weks ago, and when I got there, I wanted to kick
myself for staying away so long. Tears came to
my eyes for the first time in a long while as I
looked at the pictures and read the names of the men and women who had served before me, some who never
made it back home, who never saw the fruits of their
sacrifice.
As I
gazed at the old, sun-faded uniforms, postcard,
weapons and souvenirs of campagins past, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Dann Spear, the curator
and founder of the museum, has painstakingly created an
incredible monument to the men and women of our
armed forces. The museum is not just concerned with
the Vietnam War, as many people think. It
encompasses all recent major American conflicts.
Spear can
tell a story about every piece in his museum, every
book, patch, uniform, gun and photo. It was much more
than I was able to absorb in three hours. I asked
Spear why he did all this, and he siad that although
he had not been in the military himself, he had a
lot of freinds who went to Veitnam and he began
collecting the uniform patches and other memorabilia
to show what they had done. He said he felt it was
important the veterans not be forgotten. How right he
was.
He built
the bulding that houses the museum hismelf starting
in the late '70s. he has already added on once, and
plans to build another addition soon. He acecepts
no cash donations, only memorabilia. When he told me
that, I knew this was one dedicated troop. I
asked Spear what he enjoys most about the museum,
and he said it was the people who come to see it. he said
he really likes seeing items in the museum trigger
people's memories, stirring recollections of their
time in the service. I know it worked on me.
Finally, I asked him why he keeps on doing this year
after year. He said, "It's just to honor the vets."
It doesn't get any more real than that. Stop in
and check it out. Dann will be gald to see you, and
you'll be glad you went.
This
page was last updated on
March 02, 2008
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