Desert Medics

Dennis Hughes pointing out the Sven & Ole Bumber Sticker on his Ambulance. One of the 17 photographs used in our new exhibit - Desert Medics.

New Exhibit - Desert Medics

Recently Veterans Memorial Hall opened a new exhibit called “Desert Medics.” This exhibit chronicles the story of the 477^th Medical Company during Desert Storm and their story is told through a series of enlarged photos from personal collection of Duluthian and 477^th Member Dennis Hughes.  It was researched and designed by our Spring 2012 VMH interns: Kacey Kujala, Margie Nelson, and Heather Thornberg.

What excites me about this exhibit is that it shines the spotlight on one of our local Army Reserve units, a group that most don’t know exists in our community. In addition, it tells the story of their mission during Desert Storm, a war that has been overshadowed by the Global War on Terror. In other words, Veterans’ Memorial Hall is recognizing and remembering a piece of local history about which few are speaking and which could, as a result, eventually be lost.

The story of the 477^th’s role in Desert Storm is also interesting because it is symbolic of the Persian Gulf War as a whole. Hurry up—wait—the war is over—wait some more—go home. In fact, the 477^th’s journey sounds a lot like that of another local unit—the 14^th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry—that served in the Spanish American War. This unit, also based out of Duluth, hurried off to train for the war, waited at Camp Chickamauga, Georgia, and were never sent into battle. In fact, more men from the 14^th Minnesota died of typhoid fever while serving than of anything else.

Desert training at Ft. McCoy during a snowstorm.

 On November 22, 1990, the 477^th were sent to Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin, were they were given desert training during snowstorms. From there they were sent to Saudi Arabia by plane, where they waited for the arrival of their equipment and ambulances. Upon arrival, the group was warned of the potential heavy casualties because of the potential use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi government. That is why they procured buses, previously used to transport pilgrims to Mecca, and converted them into makeshift ambulances. They set up camp in Saudi Arabia and prepared to receive war wounded, including those exposed to chemical weapons.

Converting a bus into an ambulance.

Thankfully, in the end, there were not the heavy causalities or chemical warfare that were expected. The war itself was over in two months, with the ground war lasting less than five days. The 477^th were sent into Kuwait shortly after the ground war was over. Members of the unit were able to witness firsthand the devastation in Kuwait at the hands of the Iraqi Army. The Kuwaiti people viewed the Americans as a liberating army.

Members of the 477^th were sent to many different parts of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on individual ambulance runs. Many of their missions brought them through the Highway of Death. Its gruesome nature left a deep impression on the men and women of the unit. 

Highway of Death Photos

The most common mission was not the transport of US or Coalition forces but rather of Iraqi Enemy Prisoners of War (EPWs), many of whom were civilians who had been pressed into service by the Iraqi Army. In fact, transport of EPWs made up the vast majority of their mission.

Transportation of Enemy Prisoners of War

The men and women of the 477^th stayed in the Middle East for several months. With the war over and tensions reduced, members found creative ways to spend their free time. For instance, they built a swimming pool. 

Swimming Pool

In order to do so, they traded supplies with other units—such as an ambulance for a water tanker, so they could refill the pool daily. Finally, in May 1991, the unit was given orders to go back home, and on May 23^rd they flew back to Fr. McCoy. The 477^th was able to arrive back in Duluth by bus on Memorial Day, where they were greeted by throngs of citizens welcoming them back and thanking them for their service overseas.

 War is over!

So please come see the exhibit in person before it’s too late. The exhibit will be on display at the Depot till July 27^th.

Milissa's Collection Cache - Bardon's Bayonet Collection

Dr. Richard Bardon was a prominent Duluth physician who served as the chief of staff at St. Mary's and Miller Memorial Hospitals and as president of the St. Louis County Historical Society for 17 years.

A history lover and collector of antiques, Dr. Bardon had an extensive bayonet and sword collection. These are just a few examples of the artifacts his widow donated to the Society in 1969.

Check out the short video below that highlights this collection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDH8NJACgQ

From the Veterans' File by Patra Sevastiades

From the Veterans’ Files

by Patra Sevastiades

I grew up during the Vietnam War. In 1972, my 4th-grade reading teacher, Mrs. Wendell, had us hold a short debate about the draft. I suppose it was her attempt to urge us to start participating in civic life. It was a primitive debate, but I have never forgotten the earnestness of our arguments.

Thinking back, it occurs to me that I didn't ever ask my parents their opinions about Vietnam. Why not? After all, my mother had been a WAVE, a communications specialist, and my father a cryptographer, both of them in occupied Germany. But despite their pedigrees, I never thought of my family as a "military" family. My mother, who now suffers from Alzheimer's, does not tell stories of her service anymore. My father never joined the local VFW because, he said, he didn't feel he belonged there: he hadn't served in combat.

But having embraced their stories as an adult, I have come to appreciate that many veterans are like my parents, sharing their stories only when asked—and those requests are few and far between. I hope you will understand, then, my desire to highlight the stories of some of the veterans of northeastern Minnesota. I will draw these from our database of more than 6,000 stories (see www.vets-hall.org). I am happy to say that I am part of a team whose purpose is to collect, preserve, and add more stories to this database.

Let me begin by highlighting a 90-year-old veteran of WWII who just recently—65 years after the fact—received eight service medals. His name is Gail Freeman. Senator Al Franken presented the medals on April 24, 2010.

Mr. Freeman was born in Duluth and was talked into joining the Minnesota National Guard by a friend in 1939. Just as he was anticipating returning home for Christmas, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Members of his unit were sent to the southeastern coastline to defend the American shore—with broomsticks! They were later mobilized to Northern Ireland for training, then sent to North Africa and later, Italy. Read an interview with him at http://www.vets-hall.org/stories/world-war-ii/gail-freeman.

It is my hope that Mr. Freeman’s story, and those of other veterans, will be remembered.

US Senator Franken & Mr. Gail "Bud" Freeman

Brittany's Blog - The writer in the group

Brittany's Blog - The writer in the group

I walked into the St. Louis Count Heritage and Arts Center not knowing what to expect that day back in January. Little did I know that what I was about to learn over the next five months would change my life and make me view the world a little bit differently from that time forth. I was early, and as luck would have it, so was Dan (Mr. Hartman at that time) so I took that as a sign of starting off on the right foot, to borrow a phrase. But what came next set my teeth on edge and made me start sweating - luckily my black shirt camouflaged it well! "I want you to go through and read this exhibit... (pointing) this exhibit... (more pointing) and this exhibit... (once more, pointing) and tell me what you think," Mr. Hartman instructed.

I think I almost fainted or at the very least wanted to faint when I saw all the text he wanted me to read and create an opinion on. Ooooo, but what if my opinion turned out to be the wrong one? I knew it wasn't kosher to step on the boss's toes the very first day of a job, so I read all of the text - yes, every single word - and constructed flourishing praises for what I had read.

"So what did you think?" Mr. Hartman asked when I reappeared three hours later.

"I like the detail," I replied hesitantly.

"It's crap," he mumbled. "It's too much text but, you know, it works. Kinda. Did you get everything read?" I nodded. Every last word, I thought. "Good. I'll see you on Wednesday."

And thus began my career as a Marketing/Communication intern at the Veterans' Memorial Hall.


Eventually I met Preston and Stephen and finally Alicia and the work for our semester project began in earnest; and when I say in earnest, I'm not talking about a nice, gentle wading into the ocean of preparation that lay ahead of us, I'm talking about being taken to the middle of this ocean and pushed off the boat with a "Good luck! See you at the end!" and a smile. At least there was a smile. Fortunately, Dan jumped in right after us and gave us the positive feedback and quiet support we all desired. "No no no. What is that supposed to be? Try making it more subtle/aggressive/vivid/specific." And while all of this put smiles on our faces, what we really looked forward to was the proclamation of "Lame count!" or "You're fired!" that always seemed to follow a stupid idea or an idiot response. To date, I believe I've been fired 12 times and received a minimum of 15 lame counts.

But in all seriousness, it's been a great semester and I've learned a lot about what goes into creating an exhibit from scratch and how much hard work it is, how much schmoozing is involved and that it's good to have connections (Councilman Hartman, sir). Preston, Stephen, Alicia and I have become more than fellow interns, we've become abusive friends (yep, we skipped the simple "friends" phase and moved right into the "abusive friends" phase). I wouldn't change anything and I'm proud of what we've accomplished this semester. Even the intern trip touring Park Point/Duluth/Glensheen/Gary/New Duluth/Jay Cooke was a blast and I have to say, I've never been so sore in my life nor as well versed in Duluth geography and history than I was after that trip.

Thanks for a great semester, everyone, this is one "class" that will go down in my history books as something to remember.

Stephen Nickell's Blog Post

Currently I am double majoring in History and East Asian Area Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Superior. I will be graduating this May with a baccalaureate degree.

This is my second semester interning at Veterans' Memorial Hall. Last semester I researched Colonel Hubert Eva's life story, eventually finishing a pseudo autobiography.
At the end of the fall semester, my adviser asked me if I would like to participate in the creation of an exhibit by student interns. I decided to do another semester of the internship, in order to experience the process of creating an exhibit and seeing if I wanted to pursue a career at a museum.

The exhibit was created with a group of four interns, including myself, Preston Petermeier, Alicia Kozlowski and Brittany Houselog. Creating the exhibit was a grueling process. Working with three other interns was a lot of fun and a great idea, but it was also challenging. It was challenging in the fact that we all had great ideas for the creation process, but agreeing on a single idea did not always occur. We had to vote and agree on a plan, which always worked. It was decided that we wanted the exhibit to educate the public by telling a story in the exhibit.

Initially, we had to pick a topic. We threw around a couple ideas, finally landing on Prisoners of War. We had no idea who to research, so we randomly looked up stories of local POWs in WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam. We chose a couple of POWs from Vietnam, WWII and the Korean War. We eventually found out that this was a bad idea, so it was decided that we would focus on a single veteran. We decided to tell the story through Anthony Jurek’s experience as a Korean War POW.

After choosing out the topic, we had to come up with a title and a layout design. We went through a couple of titles, finally deciding to go with Behind the Wire. The layout design was a crucial process because of the positioning of white walls and artifact cases. The area we were going to use was the great hall, so we had to make a layout that would make the exhibit look interesting and large to the audience.

Next, we had to take the 25 pages of text that we had from Anthony Jurek’s interview, and cut it down to one page. Once that was finished, we had to find visuals for the exhibit, including artifacts and pictures. We couldn’t find many pictures or artifacts, so we thought about having local artists make paintings of the stories. I asked my friend Adam Frankiewicz, an artist at UW-Superior, to see if he would like to make paintings. He finished three amazing paintings that added a whole new perspective to the story we wanted to tell.

The week prior to the grand opening, we received horrible news that the exhibit was not going to be in the great hall. It was going to be in a side room next to the hall. It seemed like a terrible situation, but we realized that the smaller room made the exhibit seem larger than it actually was. Not a bad outcome. The construction process was smooth and quick; we pretty much put everything up in one day.

The exhibit was very successful. We had a multitude of people show up for the exhibit and for Jurek’s speech. Overall, the process flew by very fast. The exhibit, Behind the Wire, was a great internship to learn about museum work. It was a great ending to a year, from the Colonel Eva research paper to the exhibit grand opening in April. This experience will help me with future endeavors. I couldn’t have asked for a better exhibit process and internship.

Stephen Nickell - UWS Student

Preston the Intern - Building "Behind the Wire"

Preston Petermeier

Veterans Memorial Hall intern - Spring 2010

I am a History major at the University of Minnesota Duluth and this past semester; I did an internship at the Veterans Memorial Hall. During my time at as an intern, I was able to be apart of the creation of the new exhibit “Behind the Wire”.

There were three history interns and one marketing intern who all worked together in making “Behind the Wire” come together. We first had to come up with an idea to do an exhibit on, and after narrowing it down to three choices, we all agreed on doing the exhibit on a Prisoner of War. We felt that it coincided nicely with a previous exhibit “Generations of Service”. Once we came up with a topic, we needed to set up educational goals that the exhibit would fulfill for the audience. What were they going to learn from our exhibit?

After we did this, we had to come up with a layout design for the exhibit. This proved difficult, because things kept changing us. Whether it was the way we were going to approach Prisoners of War or whether it was the physical space itself. Plans continued to change until we stumbled across Anthony Jurek’s amazing story and decided to focus just on that. From there, we reached other difficulties, in that we had different ideas how to illustrate Mr. Jurek’s story. Did we have too much text? Or should we add more? It seemed that whenever we were happy with the text, we would find something else.

We came to the conclusion that because this exhibit was smaller in size, we could afford to have more text because people will still read it. So, now we realize this is going to be a text oriented exhibit focusing on the personal story of Mr. Jurek, but we needed more. We decided to illustrate parts of the story through paintings done by local artist. This was a great way to get Mr. Jurek’s story out there and have a visual aid so people can understand it on another level.

What is an exhibit with out artifacts?! Going deeper into this exhibit, we figured artifacts would be a great addition, even if they all were not Mr. Jurek’s personal artifacts. The artifacts help educate the audience who follows the exhibit.

“Behind the Wire” was a great way to get some experience in creating an exhibit. We did everything from doing the research of the topic, to laying it out, and shortening the text to a reasonable size. We also learned how to handle artifacts. So, even though we came across several difficulties, I wouldn’t have changed a thing from my experiences interning at the Veterans Memorial Hall.

Milissa's Collection Cache

This U.S. naval cutlass from 1842 was designed for hostile boarding of enemy vessels and fighting on the crowded decks.

Donated by Richard Bardon, M.D., former chief of staff at St. Mary’s Medical Center and Miller Memorial Hospital, and former president of the St. Louis County Historical Society. (Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/uniform_sword.htm)