Chris Kolakowski from the Wisconsin
Veterans Museum.
Thanks for coming to In Focus.
Well, thanks for having me.
I love the story of, you know,
someone told me years ago, we all
have something in common, but nobody
ever talks long enough to kind
of figure out what it was.
And I think what brought us together
is really interesting because I'm
sitting at the airport, headed to
Cleveland, a little more than a
month from this interview now.
And I ended up coming across
your dad.
You know, we start talking
and I'm telling them about what I
do for a living.
And, you know, I love history and
this and that and go, Oh, my son's
involved with history.
So here we are.
It's funny how things work out.
My dad, I'm not at all surprised.
My dad talks to just about anybody
and he's long taught me that
everybody has a story, they just
want to share it.
And you guys obviously made a
connection. I'm glad it worked out
that we can talk today.
Yeah, I love it. And I tell you,
I for anyone that doesn't know, you
guys are located just really just
steps from the state capital.
That's right. And I've walked across
that area past that building
so many times.
Uh, many times it's at night and
so it's always closed.
So, uh, but I've never
stuck my head inside and
I finally went in.
How would you describe what the
experience is there?
The museum is right at the top
of State Street, so right across
from the State Capitol.
And when you walk in, you get a,
basically a tour of the history
of Wisconsin veterans.
We start with the Civil War and we
go right around to the present day.
And it's not necessarily a museum
about wars and battles, although
we do talk about that because it's a
veterans museum, but it's really a
museum of about people.
You get a feel for who some of these
people are in uniform, a little bit
about what they experience, some of
the service conditions.
Like I said, in all the conflicts,
from the Civil War right up to the
present.
And we always try and find
a way for anybody that walks in a
door to find something to connect
to, at least something,
if not more than one thing,
in the museum.
Whether it's a hometown, whether
it's some personal aspect,
you know, going to the same college,
whatever the case is.
And I'm really glad you came in,
and I know you had a great time with
my staff.
Yeah, I mean, I found it to be
really interesting that,
you know, everything there is,
you know, it's somewhat centered on
Wisconsin and Wisconsin's role.
How do you guys pull that off?
So we actually were founded by Civil
War veterans for the people of
Wisconsin.
We turn 125 in
2026.
So we were founded in 1901 in the
Capitol as the GAR Memorial
Hall. Now the G.A.R.
Is the Grand Army of the Republic.
It's the veterans
organization for Civil War,
Civil War Veterans.
And our mission has since expanded
to include all Wisconsin veterans,
all services, all timeframes.
And so the stuff that we
get, Some of it we sometimes go
out and acquire, but the vast
majority of it veterans and their
families will donate to
us.
And so, you know, when you have a
veteran that walks in and says,
here's the uniform I wore in
Vietnam, or here's what my
father or mother did in
World War II, here are their letters
back and forth.
You know, it's
just a fantastic, it
is a fantastic introduction.
So, are you still, even to this
day, do you still get people
that pop in and say hey
look what I found in my attic or
look what I find in this shoe box
that was in the basement?
Like are you getting artifacts in
that way too? That happens about
every two years.
To three days.
Really either have somebody contact
us by email or you'd
be amazed what walks in the door.
Sometimes we just had a
general's aid family found
stuff in the attic and was like,
Hey, this guy was an aid to
this general in World War two.
Would you be interested in
collecting the material?
And so we we took
it in.
Yeah, I was really impressed with
some of the artifacts I saw and the
fact that they were authentic,
not replicas, you know, and
the actual items give
us a sense kind of what kind of
things that people will see when
they walk in.
Well, that's what I call the power
of the authentic.
The real thing, standing in front of
the real thing is different
than looking at it in a picture or
reading about it in book.
There's a power of real thing
the real place, power
of authentic.
Some of the stuff that we have,
we've got battle worn uniforms from
all the conflicts.
We have a machine gun in World War I
that the only Wisconsin Army
Medal of Honor recipient earned
the Medal of honor capturing and
brought it home as a war trophy.
We've got speaking of the Medal of
Honor, we've got four of them on
display from World War Two
and Korea We've
Got Vietnam Helicopter that was in
battle has some battle damage.
I don't know if they showed you
So it's it's some
really incredible stuff and some
really Incredible stories that we
have on display Yeah, and you guys
have an actual cannon from
the Civil War period right
and battle capture to is a
confederate cannon It was captured
at Shiloh by the 14th
Wisconsin on the second day of
battle on April 7th, 1862.
And they brought it back as
a war trophy to show
off and help raise war bonds.
And for years, it was,
every July 4th, it was the salute
cannon that they'd fired down State
Street from the grounds of
the Capitol. What?
Yeah, so it's just
got this incredible story.
And it's one of the first things you
see when you first walk in.
Yeah, and that's what I love about
going through, and I
told your guys, and you've got an
incredible team of folks that they
seem to know what they're talking
about. They seem to be interested.
Oh, they're fantastic.
They're great, yeah.
And I was telling the crew here and
I was telling you too that when I
came in, I kind of geeked out a
little bit, nerded out little bit.
I'm not ashamed to say it because I
love history and they seem
to love it as well.
Oh yeah. And they really just
offer like, I felt like I could talk
to anybody in your facility and they
would be able to tell me something
about something that I was looking.
I would agree with that.
And one of the, actually one of
things when I came here in 2020,
one of reasons I came was the staff.
It is a passionate, dedicated group.
It's a bunch of people that are,
have found their calling in
doing history and doing veterans
history.
And it's really,
part of my job actually is just
to direct the creativity and
direct the energy in the right, in
the best direction.
And then I just let them go.
And as a leader.
That's a wonderful place to be,
and it's a wonderful team, and I
couldn't be prouder of what we've
been doing and what we're gonna do.
Yeah, now how many artifacts do you
guys think you have in that space
down there?
So in our total collection,
both there and in our off-site
storage facility on the east side of
Madison, we have 27,000
objects ranging in size from the
Huey all the way down to Collar
Insignia and everything in between.
Where we are in the museum right now
we have about 3% on
display just because of space
limitations.
Wow. So I'm not good
at math, but I'm sure your viewers
can can do the math and figure out
what we've got there.
But
So you're saying there's like 97%
of all the other stuff you have is
in a warehouse someplace else?
Yes.
Yes, think of an iceberg, you just
saw the tip of the iceberg and
there's this hole underneath under
the water, and we've got
some incredible stories there that
we'd like to put out on display.
How do you know what to keep?
How do know what collect?
One of the biggest things when,
like if you were to offer us a
collection, one of the things that
we look at is we look,
first of all, at what best tells
your story.
You know, photographs, letters,
diaries, that's pretty obvious.
But then objects.
And sometimes if you're giving an
oral history to us, we actually have
the largest state owned oral
history, veterans oral history
collection in the country.
If you're talking when you say oral
history does that mean like
recordings of people talking about
things or exactly sitting down and
doing an interview where I
would be asking you about your your
military service.
Um, and if there are things that you
mentioned or you hold up and say,
you know, Oh, I brought this back
from wherever I served.
We want that as well
because that helps document your
your story.
So now, will you go out and seek
people to tell those kinds of
stories? Or you'd go out into the
guys go out in the community across
the state to find those kind of
people.
Guys and gals go across
the state.
We partner with some of the local
historical societies around the
state as well. We partner on PBS on
some things. That's us, that's us.
So you guys are great to work with.
So some of it is people
come to us too.
And it's part of the conversation we
have is we're interested
in your collection. If you want to
talk to do an oral history, it's
your choice, here you go.
We also look at things like
condition You know, is it,
we don't wanna bring in bugs, we
don't wanna bring something that's
moldy, you know, that sort of thing,
condition, preservation.
And then one of the other things we
look at is, do we
have it? You know everybody in World
War II came home with what's called
the Eisenhower jacket, which was the
dress, you know the dress one that
was cut off at the, you now at
the bottom.
It's a real sleek, sharp looking
thing.
There were 330,000 Wisconsinites
that served in World War II.
If every single one of them donated
their Ike jacket to us, we wouldn't
have space for anything else.
So there's a little bit of picking
and choosing about that of some
of the more, I hate to say, usual
suspects.
We may say, OK, we'll
make exceptions in cases.
But by and large, that's
another factor that we consider.
I'm going to break this into two
pieces here. So for you, as someone
who's around this a lot, what do you
feel like is the most impressive
piece of the collection that's on
display at the actual museum itself
right now?
I would say one
of the most impressive things, and
when I do tours, one of things that
people react to are the
Medals of Honor.
Because most people have never seen
the Medal of Honor up close and
personal. And we have four of them.
We have five in the collection.
We have four on display at any given
time, and we rotate them.
And when they see the medal,
they see stories, you can
just see how it clicks.
Because people know the Medal Of
Honor, but they may not really.
They may not have ever really been
exposed to it.
Just a sense of how unique it is.
Something to receive that?
So think about the
Medal of Honor was created in 1862,
retroactive to 1861.
So it's been around for about 165
years.
Think of the many, many millions
that have served in
the armed forces.
Two millions in the Civil War, four
million in World War I, 16 million
in World war II, and that's just
the major world wars
in the civil war. Then We had all
the thousands in Vietnam and up
to the, there's.
Over a million on active and reserve
duty today, just alone.
Of all those millions of millions of
people, less than
4,000 have earned the Medal of
Honor. Wow.
So, and it's very close to 4,00,
it's about 38, 39 hundred.
So that's how rare it is.
And so for us to have even five
in our collection is pretty
significant.
I was blown away by the fact that,
uh, two of the ones you have are a
father son combination
and that's right from from
Wisconsin.
Arthur and Douglas MacArthur are
from Wisconsin.
And Arthur was earned his in the
Civil War at the Battle of
Missionary Ridge in November of 1863
as an officer in a Milwaukee
regiment, the 24th Wisconsin.
And then Douglas, who was appointed
to West Point from Wisconsin,
later earned his for the defense of
the Philippines in World War II.
They're the first father-son Medal
of Honor combination in our
country's history, and they both
have Wisconsin roots.
Yeah, I remember seeing their
photographs as you come in
pretty close to the big battle
cannon. You got it.
Yep.
Going back to talking about some of
the artifacts.
One of the artifacts that really
caught my attention was an
actual
chain and whip or
leg.
I'm not sure what you would call it,
but it was from the slavery period.
Yeah.
I was told that
a soldier had brought that back from
the battlefield.
What's the story on that artifact?
So in 1863,
during the Vicksburg campaign,
the campaign opened the Mississippi
River.
So there were several Wisconsin
units that were involved and when
they crossed the Mississippi river
into the state of Mississippi, for a
lot of these badgers, it was the
first time that they were really up
close and personal with the horrific
institution of slavery.
And some of these guys were, if you
read their letters, which we have in
our collection, they were absolutely
horrified by what they saw
and understandably so.
And so some of these guys
collected these things and brought
them home just
so that people would
see.
It made that much of an impact.
And I can't remember if the label
told it, but at least some of the
things on display but
also in our collection are from
Jefferson Davis' plantation, which
was overrun by Union troops.
So here you are, the president of
the Confederacy's plantation,
and you are taking not
only war trophies, but you're taking
examples, hey, this is what we're
fighting against.
This is what we're fighting for, is
to end this.
And so bring it home.
It's a powerful, and then having
them out there and being in front of
them, it's just a powerful thing.
Yeah, I was surprised too, like you
think of a whip, you
think it's gonna have some kind of a
leather or kind
of material attached to it, but that
particular one that you have on
display is, looks like
a piece of metal or
some sort of a metal, I guess.
Yeah, it had a metal and like
cloth in it.
We have an all leather one in our
collection.
And it is.
And I say that to say that I didn't
know that they made those out
of, you know, that kind of a harsh
material, I guess.
Well, and it's.
It's one of the ones you use for the
extra harsh element.
It's an extremely unpleasant thing
to think about, but at
the same time, history is
not all sunshine and roses for sure.
And you have to remember that piece.
Yeah, and I do find when people come
through, does it become
an emotional experience as they're
going through all these periods of
Can be, it can be.
It depends on the visitor.
One of the ones that I will find
that's very interesting is when you
have families come through and
you can tell there's several
generations.
And I'll use an example that I've
witnessed myself is where you have
grandpa stand in front of our map of
Vietnam with his grandchildren and
say, this is where I was
and point toward the soldier we
have on display and say that's what
I looked like.
And I flew in one of those and point
to the Huey directly above.
So those kind of connections are
really incredible.
Some of the stories that people can
respond to, like we've got stories
of people that
are killed and then,
you know, the family story,
you know that's still resonant.
And I actually have staff members
when I talk about the death of
somebody in their 20s that have
children in their twenties and can
get emotional, you now,
when we're talking about that or
when they're hearing it on
a tour.
So it just depends on what
grabs people, but again
that's the connection we're looking
for.
It may be emotional, it may be
intellectual, whatever, but the
point is to get these stories and
get people connected and realize,
hey, these were people just like us.
They did incredible things in the
service of our state and nation,
and it
helps bridge that gap, the
civil-military divide as it's
called.
Yeah. And when I came through,
um, I just happened
to arrive about the same time a
large classroom of kids were
coming through. I think probably
were those kids are probably around
10, 11 years old.
Um, and I saw Eric,
uh, you know, one of
your guys there, you'll give them
the presentation.
And I was, uh you know
pretty, pretty cool to see these
young folks learn about this.
So who's the typical person that
kind of comes through?
And how do you build an experience
that's gonna kind of cross all the
generations so everybody gets a
little something out of it.
That's kind of the trick.
It's a trick.
It's, uh, you know, how do
you do that to engage
everybody, you know, senior citizens
all the way down to children?
And that that's that's the
trick. I call it the trick.
Um, one out of every three of
our visitors are schoolchildren.
And I'm really, really proud of that
because that's the next generation.
What we do is diminished
if the next generation doesn't
understand or appreciate what
this history is.
And so for some of the younger kids,
it's not necessarily,
it's more, this is what they use,
this what they wore, focus
in on those concrete
examples, those concrete, think of
what it would feel like to wear a
wool uniform.
Don't you think you'd be hot on the
battlefield? Things like that for
them.
High schoolers, you can do something
different with them.
You can focus on geography, you can
focus different things.
And then for the...
For other audiences, it's just
tailoring your tour to what you
wanna do for the audiences.
And that's why we present it the way
we present.
Even if you walk through the
galleries unguided, there's
enough there, if you wanna play
on some of our digital interactives,
you can play on the digital
interactivs. If you just wanna walk
and look and see what catches your
eye, you can do that too.
That's also why we put the maps out
there, so people see kind of where's
Vietnam, where's Korea,
where's the Pacific
Theater in World War II.
And so it's kind of, we would try
and create kind of a choose your own
adventure,
and let you, you know, let you kind
of guide yourself from there.
And why do you think it's important
for these young folks to learn about
all this? And why is it important
for them to learn specifically about
Wisconsin's role in
previous conflicts?
It's important for two reasons, to
educate and to inspire.
To educate, people need to
understand that the shoulders
that we stand on as Wisconsinites
and as Americans are
the generations that have gone
before us.
And when you think about what
Wisconsinites have stood for,
have raised their right hand and
said, we're going to defend the
state and the nation and
serve the state and the nationwide,
you need to know what that
is and what that has entailed.
The other thing I would point out is
the state symbols that we look at
every day that are callbacks to
Wisconsin veterans, our state flag,
our states song on Wisconsin,
both callbacks to Wisconsin.
But old Abe has a
civil Wisconsin civil war tie.
So there are things like this that
we see every single day that most
people don't realize comes right
out of the service of Wisconsin
veterans. So that's the education
piece is get that appreciation.
What has made us who we are
and what we are
and where we're going and the
shoulders we stand on.
The other piece is inspiration
because some of the most incredible
stories that you will come across
are some of those stories we have in
the museum.
I tell people, if you wanna read
some absolutely incredible stuff,
read Medal of Honor citations and
be very thankful that people like
that have existed and
have been capable of doing that.
That's something that's educational,
but it's also very inspiring.
When you realize some of what has
gone before and, hey, we've gone
through this or, hey, the frozen
show sin, they survived
that horrible winter,
we can do the, you know, we can the
same thing. You know, whatever's
going on in front of us, it gives us
perspective.
And so that's the inspiration piece.
And I think that's both of those
you can find at the Veterans Museum
for sure.
Yeah. And I want to hit on
something, uh, two things.
You actually, you mentioned that I
was going to bring up later, but
since since she brought it up, uh
you were talking about, uh old Abe,
um, you know, and for those that
don't know, maybe give them a
brief little, uh
history of what,
who old, old Abe.
Represents and what he represents.
Old Abe the War Eagle.
When most people think of Wisconsin
in the Civil War, they tend to think
of the Iron Brigade in the East.
But Old Abe was the mascot of
the Eighth Wisconsin, which served
in the Western Theater, including in
the Vicksburg campaign we were
talking about earlier.
And on the way to Camp Randall when
the unit was forming, a
group, a company out of Eau Claire
bought an eagle and
they carried Old Eagle, Old Abe into
battle alongside the unit colors
all through the unit service.
Old Abe, at the end of the war, came
back. He had a price on his head.
The Confederates had given
a bounty if somebody can kill what
they called the Yankee Buzzard.
He survived unscathed, came out,
lived out his days in the basement
of the Capitol.
He died of smoke inhalation in the
first Capitol fire.
His body was burned up in the second
Capitol fire, but we still have some
original feathers from him.
We do have a replica, full-scale
replica in the museum.
You can't miss it.
It's one of the first things.
It's one of the first things you
see.
Old Abe, there's a statue of Old Abe
in the state assembly
chamber that's right
above the speaker's dais.
And so Old Abe watches over the
state legislature.
You'll see Old Abe pop up in a few
other places. The mascot, one of
high school mascots up in Eau Claire
is the Old Abes.
So it's one the great symbols of
Wisconsin.
And he still goes into battle
because of the connection to the
101st Airborne.
I don't know if they explain that to
you or not.
They did, they did, and I want to
make sure.
People get this too.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but was
old Abe flown
in battle as a symbol of
here we come kind of thing?
Or what did it represent when
he was?
Old Abe, Bald Eagle,
so representing the United States,
Old Abe Abraham Lincoln,
and it's that extra,
you're not just carrying the colors,
you are carrying the national
mascot, which is also the unit
mascot. And the 8th Wisconsin was
officially known as the Eagle
Regiment for that reason.
And so it creates that, you know,
that esprit de corps, that sense of
teamwork, that sense a pride in the
unit, that hey, we're the only ones
carrying an eagle into battle
in the entire Union
Army. We're the only regiment that
does this.
And it's, you know, it just adds
something extra. It adds that extra
oomph that sometimes carried them on
to victory.
It's pretty sad that he survives all
that war and all those things
and then loses
his life in a fire at
the Capitol.
Yeah, in some
ways it's very ironic.
You survive all that, and then this
is what happens.
Do you get a sense that there's
any wow type
of moment or exhibit
at the museum that people tend to
drop their mouth at every time they
see it or they, you know, make some
stop and maybe pay attention to
that exhibit a little bit longer
than some of the other ones? Anything
stand out to you on that.
I think one of the things that
stands out to people...
That's kind of a tough one because
again, it's different for different
people But I will say there are two
or three that people stand around
and look at One of the ones is
the Vietnam exhibit But one of the
other ones and one of ones that I
noticed people linger at quite a bit
is Mark Nieto and the USS Cole
During the USS coal attack October
12th 2012 Sailors
were killed during the terrorist
attack at 8 in Yemen.
One of them was von delaxe mark,
Nieto. Hmm and
They come back.
He's cremated half of his ashes
are spread in the family cemetery in
Fond du Lac, the other half are
buried at sea.
And one of the things that we have
on display is one of Nieto's
uniforms, we have some other things
from that day and that event,
but we also have the box that
carried his ashes that was put
over the side.
And his mother,
right before it was carried on board
ship to go be buried at sea,
she kissed the tag.
And the lipstick is still there.
And it's the mom's final kiss
goodbye to her son.
And that really,
that's the reaction we get from a
lot of people. And that's one of
those, we were talking earlier about
impacting families.
That's one those where I've
actually, I've seen mothers get
very emotional because
they can relate.
I mean, it's an easy thing to relate
to if you're a parent.
And the final kiss good bye to your
child that has died
before his time.
Yeah, I was really impressed by
the realism of
most, well, all of the exhibits,
especially the ones that involved,
you know, people and,
you know, the mannequins
and things that are wearing the
uniforms. I mean, there's
one of a soldier on his knee,
it's to the left when you walk in
to the main exhibit hall there.
And it literally startled
me because it looks like a
real person.
A lot of those actually are real
people.
When the museum was done,
there was a company on the East
Coast called Studio Ice and they can
do castings of your face.
And so we had people get their face
molded, some staff members,
volunteers, you know, some other
prominent veterans that helped
construct that museum in 1993.
And put them in
the gallery.
There's one in the Mexican border
with the guy on
horseback and the guy with the
motorcycle.
The guy on the horseback still
visits every now and then to check
on himself.
Make sure you haven't replaced him
with someone who's...
I'd love to talk a little bit about
the state as sort
of a source for all this great
military history.
You know, we hear, you
know, Camp Randall Stadium.
We hear, uh,
you now, I live on the east side
near Union,
Union Corners, and I've
got the big, you, know, gold statue
right there in my neighborhood.
Well, can you tell us about?
Some of the remnants of that history
that's still amongst us and like
when I think Camp Randall, I don't
know if people realize that that was
a place where you know Wisconsin
soldiers went you know to get
trained and prepared.
To go to battle.
Absolutely. If you look around not
just Madison, but around the state,
you will find traces of
the state's military history.
Camp Randall being one of the best
examples, half of Wisconsinites
that went off to war,
mustered in Madison and then went
off the front.
The other half were in Milwaukee.
And actually during the
Spanish-American War, the state
fairgrounds, you know, everybody
goes to the state Fair, everybody
loves the state here.
That was the Camp Randall of the war
with Spain in 1898.
And there's a little plaque on the
exhibition hall that
commemorates that service.
But Camp Randal, the parade field at
Camp Randill during the Civil War is
today the gridiron.
It's actually the playing field in
the stadium.
And for those who are familiar
with military installations, the
Parade Field is really kind of the
beating heart of life at
the installation.
And so for they
to be on the same spot.
Every time I go to that stadium, it
just, it hits me on a little extra
level.
You know, you talk about street
names and location names, Union
Corners, Fairchild
Street, Civil War veteran,
later became governor.
You know you start going down the
list and you see a lot of these
names.
The Molthouse Bar, I understand,
is that really
an old post
office I thought I heard someone
say?
He wouldn't say it was one of the
old post offices.
Um, you know, and then you go to
other places around the state are
gone.
The town of our gone in northern
Wisconsin, named
after the World War one battle.
Dorchester has a monument to the
famous four chaplains that die at
sea in door from Dorchester.
None of them were directly connected
to Wisconsin, although there were
badgers that died in the shipwreck.
But because it was the S.
S. Dorchester that sank,
they raised a monument there.
There's a Korean War Memorial up in
Plover, you know, there's
an admiral has a park named after
him in up in
Stevens Point.
You know, Mitchell Airport in,
uh, in Milwaukee, general metro,
right? General Mitchell, Billy
Mitchell.
Uh, you know? And you start going
down the list and then you look at
the national cemeteries and the
state's veteran cemetries, you that
are around the state.
Bob Euker is now because he was an
army vet is now buried in the
national cemetery right by the
stadium. You know?
So if you look, you can
find reminders and
the presence of Wisconsin veterans
in the very, very physical
fabric of what this state is.
That one spot where a
lot of the graduates from
UW take their photographs,
coming into Camp Randall with the
big pillars. Yep.
Is that is that
remnants of the original?
That's part of the original Camp
Randall. As a matter of fact, that
arch that people walk through
to get to and from the stadium is
very famous was raised
by the GAR and
Civil War veterans in 1911
to commemorate.
And most people don't stop and look
at it, but the statues are really,
you know, really well done and then
the plaques list all of the units
that came through Camp Randal.
I was going to say, how many
soldiers Do you think we'll walk
through those? Well, I'll give you
an idea. There was 81,000
badgers that served in the Civil War
for the United States.
Wow.
And about half of them came
through Camp Randall, so that's
about 40,000 people.
And if you think about that
society at the time, it wasn't as
mobile as we are.
You know, you and I have both talked
about how we moved around for our
career, and there are a lot of
people that move around or travel.
For a lot of these people,
they'd never really been out of the
county.
Until they go to the big city of
Madison or the big city of
Milwaukee.
And then from there to the front
lines.
And so for a lot of these veterans,
and I would argue even for later
generations, this is
one of the defining things in
their life.
There's a song that comes after
World War I that is written called,
How Can We Keep Him Down on the Farm
After He's Seen Petri?
So in other words, how can all these
returning Servicemen
Are they really going to stay in
their small town when they've seen
Paris, when they're seen other parts
of the world, you know, and
that's, that's another human
piece of it that people
don't necessarily think about.
And earlier you mentioned on
Wisconsin as a battle
cry.
I had no idea that that song
comes from Wisconsin
military. Explain that history.
So we talked about Arthur and
Douglas MacArthur. This is actually
from Arthur MacArthur's Medal of
Honor action.
They're going up the Missionary
Ridge outside of Chattanooga,
Tennessee.
And it's an 800 foot
that slope, 45 degrees
or better.
And as they're going, the color
bearer of the 24th Wisconsin, who's
in his 40s, gets tired.
Understandably so.
But the problem is, in the Civil
War, you're trained that wherever
the flag is, you are.
So if the flag stops, you stop.
So he stops for a second to catch
his breath.
The unit stops under fire.
Arthur MacArthur is 18 years old.
He's full of all that teenage
energy, right?
So he comes over and grabs the flag
and yells, I'll take
it, and turns to the unit and
yells on Wisconsin,
leads him up the hill.
One of the first two flags to break
a top missionary ridge or one of the
two flags seen atop missionary ridge
is the 24th Wisconsin.
And he gets the Medal of Honor for
that leadership under fire, it's
that story.
That inspires the state song
and the fight song on
Wisconsin. So now does that mean
that whole, that regimen, they were
all Wisconsinites?
Yep, they all came from Milwaukee.
Every, most Civil War units
were recruited from a specific,
either a specific region or
a specific city,
in the case of Milwaukee.
You could get everybody from
Milwaukee County because it's a big
enough city.
You get some units like one of my
ancestral units the 21st, Wisconsin
is from the counties around
Manitowoc between Manitouac and Lake
Winnebago And
so that's where that comes from You
get Madison units as
well, but they all are very
and a lot of these guys
Grew up together or served in the
same, you know, or knew the same
neighborhoods knew the city So
you're serving with friends?
Yeah, a lot people don't realize
that these are all volunteers back
in those days, right?
That's correct That's correct, the
draft. Most of the 250-year
history of the United States
military, from 1775 to the
present, only
about a third of that has
been the draft.
The rest of the time, it's been
volunteer.
And we think of the draft because
they had the peacetime draft all the
way through Vietnam.
That is the exception
rather than the rule.
The volunteer military we've had
since 1973 is very much the
rule, and so you get these
people that make a conscious
decision.
To raise the right hand and go.
Yeah, and one of the things I
learned from and listening to
your team is some
of these regimens were built on
community and people were pulled
from these the same communities and
part of that community includes a
lot of diversity in terms of.
People of color.
That's right.
And that's something that we we
try and showcase a lot and try
and point out where we can.
Um, there are entire companies
recruited out of the Indian
reservations, the native
reservations.
Um, it's really interesting how they
know written language, but how you
translate, transliterate that in the
records.
Um There's a company of United
States color troops that comes out
of Milwaukee to go serve in
the and a couple a
couple of black
USCT Wisconsinites are at
Appomattox, the surrender of
Lee's Army in 1865.
And there's some that
are liberated as slaves and
end up here in Wisconsin after,
you know, working or
enlisting in the Union Army and end
here as Wisconsinites and
are treated at
no different than any other Civil
War veteran. And that's something
that should be mentioned, is the GAR
never segregated in
any way?
They actually had a few women
members as well.
And the same was true of a veterans
organization since.
And so you
sometimes hear veterans say, I
see no color but green or blue,
or whatever the service is.
And you see that also in some of
these veterans communities too.
It's a really incredible story.
What do you see, Chris,
future-wise in terms of how
this museum continues to be curated
and how
it grows and what's
it going to look like moving
forward, especially, you know,
100 years from now?
That's actually, it's funny you
bring it up that way, because that's
something that I talk to the team
about, particularly when we collect,
is I say, when we collected,
what do we want people 160 years
from now to know about this
generation? What are we gonna need
to tell that story?
And we have an idea of that because
of the Civil War 160 years ago.
What do we have and what did we wish
we had?
So there's that the other thing is
when we take like if I if if
you were to donate if you're a
veteran You donated me your
uniforms. We take on a legal and
ethical obligation To make
sure that a hundred years from now.
It's in good shape and can be
studied your story is preserved and
can be shared for future
generations And that's
something we take very very
seriously In terms of
where we're going. We are actually
have been working with the state
legislature on and they In
the latest budget, they gave us some
money to do some engineering and
planning to look at the next
generation of the Veterans Museum,
an expanded Veterans Museum to do
more display spaces to make even
more programming space, you know, to
really and to really
take us to the next level.
And to the point I
just made.
When we looked at what we needed,
and we started looking at what's
gonna be required, I said, we're not
thinking 10 years, we are not
thinking 30, I want you to think 50
years and beyond.
This is a once in a generation
project.
And so let's think about it in those
terms and give those
future generations,
set them up for success to be able
to carry it, you know,
to stand on our shoulders and
be able carry it forward and
continue the important mission that
we do.
You talked about artifacts and
things you wish you might
have.
Is there something out there that
you feel like you'd love to get in
that collection over there that
you'd like to see come your way?
And one of the things that I'd like
to see is, I'd
actually like to see,
that's a tough question.
Oh come on, you can handle this
question.
So one of things that we'd
like, actually we'd like to see is
we'd to see more from the current
conflicts.
One of the things that you'll find
is that from
desert storm forward,
they have trouble thinking of
themselves as historic.
Yeah, because it's all, we're all
kind of living.
We're still living it.
And it's still in the fairly recent
past.
But Desert Storm is over 30 years
ago.
9-11 is going to be 25 in
2026.
So getting those stories now
from that generation of veterans
is something that we'd really
like to see
more of.
That's a part of
the collection that we're still
trying to.
Is there a Wisconsin piece of
military history that's connected to
9-11 that you can think of off the
top of your head?
We had several Badgers that were in
the Pentagon on that day, and we
have their oral histories.
That's probably the most prominent
thing that I can think of off the
top of my head.
And we did actually have, we
have at least, we have oral
histories from several Wisconsin
veterans that joined because of
9-11, and they talk
about it. You know, I saw the towers
come down, and it motivated me to
join up and serve my
country.
And we actually have somebody who
joined the Army who survived the
trade center.
And was from Wisconsin,
had moved to New York, was there,
and then joined the Army and
afterwards retired back home.
So, you know, that's probably
our closest tie.
And we talked about what you thought
was one of the more impressive
kind of artifacts on
site. Let's go to that warehouse.
You've got so much stuff in there.
What is the most impressive thing
you think you feel like you have in
that space?
So I'll give you two things.
Number one is we have the flag
from the 24th Wisconsin that
Arthur MacArthur carried up
Missionary Ridge.
So, when I show
it on tours... And that's dating
back to when again? That's 1863,
so it's a 160 year old silk flag.
And so I pull it out and say this is
the origin item.
And it's incredible the reaction
we get.
One of the other things that we have
is, you know, the Iron Brigade
was known as the Black Hats because
of the tall black hats that they
wore. The only battle-worn
black hat still in existence
is in our collection.
And it was carried at Gettysburg
by the color bearer of the 2nd
Wisconsin, who was shot five times.
And actually, he was shot six times,
because the sixth bullet went
through the brow of the cap, but was
too high for him
to strike his head.
And give us a quick lesson on the
ambergris.
And for those who don't know that.
So the Iron Brigade is a very famous
unit. It's the 2nd, 6th, 7th
Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, and 24th
Michigan.
And they were known, again, we were
talking about signatures earlier
with the Eagle Regiment.
They were known as the Black Hat
Brigade and later the Iron brigade
because of their tenacity in battle.
But their signature was wearing the
tall, it's called a hardy hat,
dress hat.
And so, in fact, the Confederates at
Gettysburg, one Confederate is
recorded as saying to the other,
There's those damn black hatters
again This ain't no militia
we're fighting. This is the Army,
the Potomac.
So everybody on both sides knew who
they were. They were very famous.
And even today, a lot of people,
when they think of Wisconsin and the
Civil War, that's the first thing
they think.
So, and as
far as the name itself, they became
the Iron Brigade because of their
toughness, or how did they?
Because of the toughness in battle.
Actually, it was the Battle of South
Mountain in 1862 as
they're climbing the
mountain under Confederate fire and
going up very steep.
One of the Union generals looks at
it and says, those must be men of
iron to do that.
Wow.
And the name stuck.
We're going to wrap you up because I
know you've been there a little bit
talking to us.
I'd love to hear just why are you so
passionate about all this?
To be honest,
reasons, personal and professional,
both the professional piece.
I think we've already talked about
some of the power of a great story,
the power of being able to share
these stories. I'm very passionate
about, you know, teaching and
educating and getting people
excited, as excited as I am
and to understand the importance of
this stuff.
But this is also personal.
My ancestors have been
in Wisconsin since 1845.
I have Wisconsin veteran
ancestors in my family tree,
all services from
the Civil War all the way up
through the Cold War.
And so for me,
it's a way to honor that
and honor my family and
honor their service as well.
And so those two things
make it very easy to get out
of bed every day.
And if you had one
super power to kind of make
something happen that you'd like to
see happen over in your space, what
would that be?
And are you any plans to
move anytime soon or to move into a
bigger space?
Anything like that?
So the current plan is, is we're
working to exercise the option to
buy the building where we are.
Um, and once that's done where the
engineering is, the concept is
we are going to tear down
the existing building and build new
and build a new purpose built
facility to the requirements that
we talked about.
Um If I could wave a
magic wand, it would be fully
resourced tomorrow and we'd be able
to get underway.
But we're still working
through the engineering and we're
working on raising the funds.
It's gonna be a public-private
partnership with our foundation and
with the state.
As I tell people, we're on the same
path as the History Center, which is
under construction across the street
from us.
We're just a few years behind.
But it's gonna exciting.
Going to be very exciting.
Well, Chris, I appreciate you
stopping in and I appreciate the
team that you guys have over there.
You're doing some incredible work.
Thank you very much. Thanks for
having me. I'm an old man,
but I went in there and I learned
things that I
didn't know before and I'm gonna
have to come back and spend some
more time. Don't be a stranger.
We appreciate you stopping in.