Yorktown Volunteer Trip National Infantry Museum, Ft. Benning, GA

The National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center opened in 2009 with one guiding mission: to honor the legacy and valor of the U.S. Army Infantryman.

Fort Benning is a United States Army base located on the Alabama-Georgia border next to Columbus, Georgia. Fort Benning supports more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees, and civilian employees. Since 1918, Fort Benning has served as the Home of the Infantry. It provides Basic and Advanced training for Career Officers, Officer Candidate School, Special Forces and Ranger training. It houses elements of the 75th Ranger Regiment (United States), 3rd Brigade – 3rd Infantry Division, and Armor School. It is named after Henry L. Benning, a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

The Last 100 Yards Ramp I Am the Infantry, Follow Me! The gallery traces the history from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WW I and WW II, Korean, Vietnam and the desert wars.   

The Battle of Yorktown campaign proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War.   General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops captured British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict.  

The Battle of Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign. It was the first field army–level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil and is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing.

The Battle of Soissons was a World War I battle, waged from July 18-22 1918, between the French (with American assistance) and German armies. Ferdinand Foch, the Allied Supreme Commander, launched the offensive with 24 French divisions and 2 U.S. divisions under French command, supported by approximately 478 tanks, sought to eliminate the salient that was aimed at Paris. The Allies suffered 107,000 casualties (95,000 French and 12,000 American), while the Germans suffered 168,000 casualties.  The battle ended with the French recapturing most of the ground lost to the German Spring Offensive in May 1918.  Adolf Hitler, the future Führer of Nazi Germany, earned and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class at Soissons.

Omaha Beach was one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during World War II. 'Omaha' refers to a section of the coast of Normandy, France, facing the English Channel 5 miles long.  On D-Day, the untested 29th Infantry Division, along with nine companies of U.S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to assault the western half of the beach. The battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern half. The initial assault waves, consisting of tanks, infantry, and combat engineer forces, were carefully planned to reduce the coastal defenses and allow the larger ships of the follow-up waves to land.

The American airborne landings in Normandy were the first American combat operations during Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy by the Western Allies on June 6, 1944, during World War II.  13,100 American paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions made night parachute drops early on D-Day, June 6, followed by 3,937 glider troops flown in by day.  As the opening maneuver of Operation Neptune (the assault operation for Overlord) the two American airborne divisions were delivered to the continent in two parachute and six glider missions.

On February 7, 1951, CPT Millett led his soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division atop Hill 180 near Soam-Ni, Korea. With only bayonets and hand grenades, the company fought a hand-to-hand assault against heavy opposing fire. Millett and his Soldiers used their bayonets with such lethality that the enemy fled in disbelief.  Even after he was wounded by grenade fragments, CPT Millett refused to be evacuated until the mission was secure. President Harry Truman later presented CPT Millett with the Congressional Medal of Honor in July 1951. Millett, a WWII, Korean and Vietnam Veteran rose to the rank of Colonel. He died in November 2009.

The Vietnam War occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies.  The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States. The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of the domino theory of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

Despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture. The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations.   Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973.  The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.  Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 to 3.8 million. 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, and a further 1,626 remain missing in action.

M2 Bradley is an American infantry fighting vehicle manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments, which was formerly United Defense. The Bradley is designed for reconnaissance and to transport a squad of infantry, providing them protection from small arms fire, while also providing firepower to both suppress and eliminate most threats to friendly infantry. It is designed to be highly maneuverable and to be fast enough to keep up with heavy armor during an advance. The M2 holds a crew of three: a commander, a gunner and a driver, as well as six fully equipped soldiers.  The M2's primary armament is a 25 mm cannon, which fires up to 200 rounds per minute. It is also armed with two BGM-71 TOW wire-guided missiles. 

During the Gulf War, M2 Bradleys destroyed more Iraqi armored vehicles than the M1 Abrams.  A total of 20 Bradleys was lost—three by enemy fire and 17 due to friendly fire incidents; another 12 were damaged. The gunner of one Bradley was killed when his vehicle was hit by Iraqi fire.  To remedy some problems that were identified as contributing factors in the friendly fire incidents, infrared identification panels and other identification measures were added to the Bradleys.

In the Iraq War, the Bradley proved vulnerable to improvised explosive device and rocket-propelled grenade attacks, but casualties were light with the crew able to escape. In 2006, total losses included 55 Bradleys destroyed and some 700 others damaged.  By 2007, the Army had stopped using the M2 Bradley in combat.  About 150 Bradleys had been destroyed.  In 2010, the Army started the Ground Combat Vehicle program to replace the Bradley with the  next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) which is planned to test "at least two" prototypes by 2022 in order to field a new armored vehicle by 2035.

The International Stage Exhibit: 1898-1920 Spanish-American War and Philippine Insurrection.

The Spanish-American War (1898) was a conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America. The war originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, which began in February 1895. With the growing popular demand for U.S. intervention and an unexplained sinking in Havana harbor of the battleship USS Maine (Feb. 15, 1898) the U.S. Congress issued resolutions that declared Cuba’s right to independence, demanded the withdrawal of Spain’s armed forces from the island, and authorized President McKinley’s use of force to secure that withdrawal while renouncing any U.S. design for annexing Cuba.

Spain declared war on the United States on April 21, 1898. The ensuing war was easily won by the U.S.  The Spanish Caribbean fleet under Adm. Pascual Cervera was located in Santiago de Cuba harbor by U.S. reconnaissance. An army of regular troops and volunteers under Gen. William Shafter (including Theodore Roosevelt and his 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the “Rough Riders”) landed on the coast east of Santiago and slowly advanced on the city and forced Cervera’s fleet out of the harbor and under heavy fire from U.S. guns and were beached in a burning or sinking condition. Santiago surrendered to Shafter on July 17, thus effectively ending the war.

After its defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain ceded its longstanding colony of the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. On February 4, 1899, just two days before the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, fighting broke out between American forces and Filipino nationalists led by Emilio Aguinaldo who sought independence rather than a change in colonial rulers. The ensuing Philippine-American War lasted three years and resulted in the death of over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants. As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease.

World at War: 1920-1947 Rise of Fascism, European and Pacific Theaters, Holocaust Liberation Containing the largest collection of artifacts on display in the museum, the World at War gallery tells the story of World War II.

Entrance to the Exhibit of the End of the Cold War 1947-1989

The Sole Superpower Exhibit: 1989-Present Since the late 1980s American troops have been involved in conflicts including Desert Storm, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terrorism against ISIS.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower.

The National Infantry Museum’s new national memorial to the Global War on Terrorism honors all who have served and continue to serve since 911. The memorial, dedicated two weeks prior to our arrival, includes eight granite panels etched with the names of nearly 7,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who have died in service since 9/11. 

The memorial also features nine bronze figures representing an Infantry squad

A 13-foot steel beam taken from the wreckage of the World Trade Center and donated to the museum by New York City firefighters sits atop concrete columns representing the Twin Towers.