The Iowa Goldstar Military Museum at Camp Dodge is open today and providing a free breakfast to continue what has become a tradition on Memorial Day.
Museum curator Mike Vogt says several other things are planned. “Throughout the day, we’ll have reenactors in period uniforms representing different periods. We’ll have veteran volunteers in the galleries and helping with the event. We will have ice cream available, we’ll have a wreath laying,” he says. He says there will also be representatives of various veteran organizations there as well.
Vogt says the Goldstar Museum highlights Iowan who served and the conflicts. “We have a gallery containing a timeline of exhibits from the military on the frontier, the Dragoons, the forts of Iowa, as you walk through the into the gallery progress forward through time,” Vogt says. “A couple of years ago, we finished up an exhibit on Desert Shield, Desert Storm. 30 year old conflict already 31. And the war on terror.”
Some of the exhibits are interactive. “One of our most popular exhibits is an F-16 cockpit simulator. We have it set up where you’re on the runway at the Des Moines airport and you can sit in and roar down the runway and fly over Saylorville Lake and see the Ruan Building,” he says.
Vogt says it’s especially important to remember those who served on this day. “Memorial Day is an observance that has its origins at the conclusion of the U.S. Civil War — used to call it Decoration Day — and cemeteries north and south are decorated with flowers and wreaths honoring those dead from the Civil War. And over time that has evolved into what we know today is Memorial Day,” Vogt says.
The Goldstar Military Museum is open today (Monday) until 1 p.m. Admission is free.