In the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum...:
The first display, a 1914 Rauch and Lange electric car, was a stand-alone piece and so unconnected to any theme or relevance that it would have just been the parking space for one of the more nostalgic construction workers had there not been a picture of Eisenhower off to the side. The electric got up to 13 mph and could go 100 miles, which I guess was enough to keep Dwight Eisenhower impressed. As reported, he liked driving it even though, or especially because, it was not his, but rather belonged to his father-in-law. This really small tidbit had to stand on its own to transition our perplexed, self-guided, group of two into the next area.
If the first two rooms (and that car) were a wash, then the first real exhibit, bafflingly, was all about Mamie Eisenhower—a.k.a. Kitty Forman from a theoretical "That 50s Show." Displays of Mamie’s hats and wardrobe were donned by terrifying mannequins that had faces but no eyes. Toward the back, one could then watch a short documentary about Mamie that combined all the worst parts of cheesy, 1960s documentaries you thought were left behind at grade school. Blunt font, scratchy audio recording; I didn’t finish it. “I like Mamie” political buttons (playing off the “I like Ike” slogan) were displayed but book-ended by chapter-amounts of reading. With my interest plummeting like a bald eagle suffering a heart attack, I turned a corner and found what I initially understood to be Mamie Eisenhower’s collection of M3A1 submachine guns.
Unfortunately, my original interpretation was incorrect, as the guns displayed were actually just the first part of the WWII section of the museum, though still a peculiar transition. The next few exhibits showcased rifles, side arms, grenades and knives and probably had enough restored to working condition to fend any forthcoming mummy-ocalypse. Large blocks of text, which made the whole experience rather slow moving, surrounded all the weaponry displays. Matt and myself took to reading different things at different times and thus dropped any potential discussion.
I imagine anybody with a child-like mind (like me) would have found this experience quiet, dull and even excruciating (again, like me). Often times, the panels of text were larger than the meager displays and begged the question, why not just read a book? At least then one gets to sit down. The WWII displays themselves were often times toy replicas of tanks, boats or, in the most interesting moments, maps of the English Channel printed upside down.
Early in the walk, Eisenhower’s team of experts were noted and given some credence. There were also original letters between the General and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, though actually reading the letters was more difficult than the educational value of what was said. One nearby photo showed FDR sitting down while presenting Eisenhower with a medal. Failing to note the specific medal, I was distracted by the content of the picture—a clearly staged photo opportunity. As commonly known nowadays, FDR suffered from polio and could not walk, and rarely even stood without assistance. The photo is an awkward reminder of one of the most elaborate ploys pulled on the, seemingly naive, American public. This thought led me to wonder what future generations are going to laugh at us about; what we never saw that is right in front of us.
The WWII walk-through then slowly shifted focus away the top commanders and instead just acted as a general overview of the expensive sequel to a niche world war (which itself had only developed a cult following amongst 1920s surrealists). The information presented, in terms of entertainment and accuracy, rested somewhere between "Saving Private Ryan" and ramblings regurgitated by a college student who pulled a B+ in his military history class. Yeah, the Germans over-stretched themselves. Russians were united by Operation Barbarossa. French/Polish resistance hampered German forces. Winston Churchill advocated for the Allied invasion of Italy, incorrectly thinking the peninsula was Europe’s “soft underbelly.”
While the WWII saga presented was rather removed and overlong (again, so much text, so few things), it had a certain dignity—which was then dropped with a half-hearted attempt at the reconstruction of an Allied landing boat reaching Normandy. The hallway forced visitors into a short, narrow, passage way, with one panoramic (maybe 270 degree) picture of soldiers storming the beach with wood, boat-like paneling and distant battle sound effects so quiet that one could almost miss the whole experience of being dropped into one of the most extraordinary battles of all-time.
The museum’s further accounts of Operation Overlord painted too clean of a picture and sell it as some historic inevitability. The museum overstated the Allied bombers’ accuracy, understated German intelligence, and otherwise treated the whole thing as unquestionably America’s proudest moment, and not the operation-level disaster that killed over 3,000 Allied soldiers and forced the Allies to stumble their way through France.
It’s actually shortly after the D-Day segment, that the whole WWII comes to a highpoint with the exhibit on the Mulberry Harbours—which is neither the bar I frequent nor a brand of cigarettes. Maybe the most impressive, movable, civil engineering marvel since the original Ferris Wheel (if not ever), the Mulberry Harbours were platforms constructed in England, deconstructed, shipped to Normandy, and reconstructed to stand against Atlantic storms. Once there, tanks, military vehicles and around 2.5 million men drove off the ships, across the roadways and into France over the proceeding months. Nearly 70 years later, I can’t help but wonder if we could have just built a bridge to the moon by now had there been anything to kill on that orbiting rock.
As if calculating my awe and not wanting to keep me impressed or even comfortable for too long, the next bend revealed life-like, life-size, completely white statutes of WWII soldiers. While I was 99.9% the soldiers weren’t actually people frozen in place and would move at any point, that .1% drove me nuts and I kept an eye on them until I cleared the area. Fortunately, the only thing that could regain my attention was actually in the next section: a 4,000-lb bomb, alongside some cannons and military vehicles. I considered getting on top of the bomb, but then became concerned that our tour of the museum might come to an abrupt end—either from getting kicked out or accidentally blowing up half of Abilene.
-Hey Matt, I said, why don’t you get on the bomb?
-No, he said back. Why don’t you ride it?
-Fine, be a jerk. I’ll do it next time.
Nearby, we found three separate glass cases of medals, decorations, honors and awards presented to General Dwight Eisenhower—which, everything else aside, reminded us that this was actually the Dwight Eisenhower museum. The medals and ribbons were so numerous that there was literally no way Eisenhower could have worn all of his accolades had he been an inch shorter than two stories tall. Unfortunately, Wikipedia says Eisenhower was only 5 foot, 10.5 inches and so likely found himself swimming in medals and decrees of honorary citizenship. Also, he may or may not have been allowed to secretly pick up to three Academy Award winners between the years 1948-1952.
In what had to be the smoothest transition between segments of the President’s life, we walked through a “The Hero Returns” room and into the extended process of getting the incredibly popular leader, who had yet to ever vote, to run for American politics (as a Democrat or Republican).
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