A Visit to the Marine Corps Museum

Last week, Davida and I visited the US Marine Corps museum in Quantico. The museum is located on the unfortunately dubbed Jefferson Davis Highway (what, Hitler Highway was taken? Tojo Turnpike? Kaiser Wilhelm II Memorial Parkway? Ho Chi Minh Trail?), but is nevertheless quite lovely on the outside. The inside is designed around a central area with various 20th century aircraft, with a long antechamber describing the history of the Marine Corps in various twentieth century conflicts.

The most engaging displays focused on the Marine Corps experience in Vietnam and Korea, with further concentration on the Khe Sanh and Chosin Reservoir, respectively. Both of those exhibits contained life-size models of earthworks from the actual battles, and in the Chosin Reservoir exhibit room the temperature was lowered to about 50 degrees. I was less impressed with the World War II exhibit, which didn’t seem to break much new ground, although it did have the first flag to be raised over Iwo Jima. The Marine Corps training area was also entertaining enough, although on the day we went both the rifle range and the F-35B simulator were down with technical problems.

I do wish that there had been more material about the Marine Corps in the 19th century, or about the various brushfire wars in which the Marines participated in Latin America. Indeed, there was precious little even about the campaign against the Barbary pirates, which stood in contrast to the extensive treatment of that campaign at the Washington Navy Yard Museum. I would also have liked to learn more about the Marine Corps performance in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, but no luck. Overall, though, it was a nice visit, with a decent gift shop and free admission.