[percussive music] - Murv Seymour: Chris Kolakowski from the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, thanks for coming to In Focus.

- Chris Kolakowski: 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!

- Chris: That's right, yeah.

- And we start talking, and I'm telling him about what I do for a living and, you know, "Oh, I love history," and this and that, and he goes, "Oh, my son's involved with history," you know, so here we are.

- Chris: 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 wanna share it.

And you guys obviously made a connection.

I'm glad it worked out that we can talk today.

- Murv: Yeah, I love it, and I'll tell you, for anyone that doesn't know, you guys are located just, really just steps from the State Capitol.

- That's right.

- And I've walked across that area, past that building, so many times.

Many times, it's at night, and so it's always closed.

- Chris: Right.

- But I've never stuck my head inside, and I finally went in.

How would you describe what the experience is there?

- So, 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 'cause it's a veterans museum, but it's really a museum 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 the 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, went 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.

- Yeah.

- How do 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 G.A.R.

Memorial Hall.

Now, the G.A.R.

is the Grand Army of the Republic.

It's the veterans organization for Civil War veterans.

And our mission has since expanded to include all Wisconsin veterans, all services, all time frames.

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's their letters back and forth," you know, it's just a fantastic, it's 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 found in this shoebox that was in the basement?"

Like, are you still getting artifacts in that way, too?

- That happens about every two to three days.

- Murv: Really?

- Where we either have somebody contact us by e-mail, or-- You'd be amazed what walks in the door sometimes.

We just had a general's aide, family found stuff in the attic and was like, "Hey, this guy was an aide to this general in World War II.

Would you be interested in collecting the material?"

And so we took it in, yeah.

- Yeah, and I was really impressed with some of the artifacts I saw and the fact that they were authentic, not replicas.

- Chris: Right.

- You know, and the actual items.

Give us a sense, kind of, 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 a book.

There's a power of the real thing, the real place, the power of the 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 II and Korea.

We've got a Vietnam helicopter that was in battle, has some battle damage.

I don't know if they showed you that on the tail of the rotor.

- Murv: I saw that, that's amazing!

How can you miss it?

- Chris: So, it's some really incredible stuff and some really incredible stories that we have on display.

- Murv: Yeah, and you guys have an actual cannon from the Civil War period?

- Chris: Right.

A battle capture, too.

It was a Confederate cannon that was captured at Shiloh by the 14th Wisconsin on the second day of battle, on April 7, 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 4, it was the salute cannon that they'd fire down State Street from the grounds of the Capitol.

- Murv: 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-- - Chris: Thank you.

- They seem to know what they're talking about.

- Oh, they're fantastic, they're great, yeah.

- And I was, you know, 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 a little bit.

I'm not ashamed to say it because I love history, and they seem to love it as well.

- Chris: 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 at.

- I would agree with that, and one of the-- Actually, one of the things when I came here in 2020, one of the 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 'em go.

And as a leader, that's a wonderful place to be.

- Yeah.

- Chris: 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.

That, where we are in the museum right now, we have about 3% on display just because of space limitations.

- Murv: Wow.

- So, I'm not good at math, but I'm sure your viewers 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.

If you just saw the tip of the iceberg and there's this whole 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 you know what to collect?

- One of the biggest things when-- Like, if you were to offer us a collection, one of the biggest things that we look at is we look at, first of all, 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-- - Murv: Now, when you say oral history, does that mean, like, recordings of people talking about things, or?

- Chris: Exactly, exactly.

Sitting down and doing an interview where I would be asking you about your military service.

And if there are things that you mention or you hold up and say, you know, "Oh, I brought this back from, you know, wherever I served," we want that as well, because that helps document your story.

- So, now will you go out and seek people to tell those kinds of stories, or you go out into the, you guys go out in the community, across the state, to find those kind of people?

- Guys go-- Guys and gals go across the state.

We partner with some of the local historical societies around the state as well.

We partner with PBS on some things.

- That's us, that's us.

- Yeah.

So, you guys are great to work with.

You know, some of it is people, people come to us, too.

And it's, part of the conversation we have is, you know, "Oh, we're interested in your collection.

"If you wanna 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 in 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 know, 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.

- Yeah.

- 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, it's like, "Okay, we..." We'll make exceptions in cases, but, by and large, you know, that's another factor that we consider.

- Yeah.

And now I'm gonna 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... I would say one of the most impressive things, and when I do tours, one of the 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 the stories.

You can just see how it clicks.

'Cause people know the Medal of Honor, but they may not really... They may not have ever really been exposed to it.

- Can you give us a sense of how unique it is for someone to receive that?

- Chris: 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.

2 million in the Civil War, 4 million in World War I, 16 million in World War II, and that's just the major World Wars and the Civil War.

Then you add all the thousands in Vietnam and up to-- There's over a million on active and reserve duty today just alone.

Of all those millions and millions of people, less than 4,000 have earned the Medal of Honor.

- Murv: Wow.

- And it's very close to 4,000.

It's about 3,800, 3,900.

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 two of the ones you have are a father-son combination.

- That's right.

- 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 there.

- Chris: 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.

- And I was told that-- - Leg irons, basically.

- Leg irons.

- Yeah.

- And 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.

- Murv: Yeah.

- It made that much of an impact.

And what, 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's 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."

- Murv: Yeah.

- And so bring it home.

It's a powerful-- And then having them out there and being in front of it, 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, you know, kind of material attached to it, but that particular one that you have on display is, looks like a piece of metal or... - Chris: Yeah.

- Murv: ...some sort of a metal, I guess.

- Chris: 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 one of the ones you use for the extra harsh element.

- Murv: Wow.

- It's an extremely unpleasant thing to think about.

- Murv: Yeah.

- But, at the same time, you know, history is not all sunshine and roses, for sure, and you have to remember that piece.

- Yeah, now, do you find when people come through, does it become an emotional experience as they're going through all these periods of war?

- Chris: It 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 still resonate.

And I actually have staff members, when I talk about the death of somebody in their 20s, that have children in their 20s and can get emotional, you know, 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 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, you know, it helps bridge that gap, the civil-military divide, as it's called.

- Yeah, and when I came through, I just happened to arrive about the same time a large classroom of kids were coming through.

They probably were, those kids were probably around 10 or 11 years old.

And I saw Erik, you know, one of your guys there, you know, give them the presentation, and I was, you know, 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 [laughs] in some ways.

- Murv: It's a trick?

- It's a trick.

It's, you know, how do you do that to engage everybody, you know, senior citizens all the way down to children?

And that's the trick.

I call it the trick.

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... You know, it's more "This is what they used.

This is what they wore."

You know, focus in on those concrete examples, those, you know, "Think of what it would feel like "to wear a wool uniform.

Don't you think you'd be hot on the battlefield?"

You know, things like that for them.

You know, high schoolers, you can do something different with them.

You know, you can focus on geography.

You can focus on different things.

And then for the, you know, for other audiences, it's just tailoring your tour to what you want to do for the audiences.

And that's why we present it the way we present it, when even if you walk through the galleries unguided, there's enough there.

You know, if you wanna play on some of our digital interactives, you can play on the digital interactives.

If you just wanna walk and look and see what catches your eye, you can do that, too.

That's also why we've put the maps out there, so people see kind of where, you know, where is Vietnam, where's Korea, where's the, you know, where's the Pacific Theater in World War II?

And so, it's kind of, we 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?

- I think it's important for two reasons: to educate and to inspire.

To educate, people need to understand that 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 gonna defend the state and the nation serve the state and the nation," you need to understand 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 state song, "On, Wisconsin," both callbacks to Wisconsin.

Old Abe has a Wisconsin Civil War tie.

You know, 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 of 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 the stories we have in the museum.

I tell people, If you want to 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 Chosin, they survived that horrible winter.

We can do the, you know, we can do 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, two things, actually, you mentioned, that I was gonna bring up later, but since you brought it up, you were talking about Old Abe, you know, and for those that don't know, maybe give them a brief little history of what, who 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 8th 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's 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 back, 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.

- Murv: Yeah, you can't miss it.

It's one of the first things you see.

- Chris: It's one of the first things you see, yeah.

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 the high school mascots up in Eau Claire is the Old Abes.

So, it's one of the great symbols of Wisconsin, and it still, he still goes into battle because of the connection to the 101st Airborne.

I don't know if they explained that to you or not.

- They did, they did, and I wanna 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-- - So, Old Abe, the bald eagle, so representing the United States, Old Abe, Abraham Lincoln, and it's that extra-- You're not just carrying the colors, you're 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 of 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, yeah, it's-- In some ways, it's very ironic.

You survive all that, and then this is what happens.

- Murv: Yeah.

Now, do you get a sense that there's a, 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, it makes them 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 the ones that I noticed people linger at quite a bit is Marc Nieto and the USS Cole.

During the USS Cole attack, October 12, 2000, twelve sailors were killed during the terrorist attack at Aden, Yemen.

One of them was Fond du Lac's Marc 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.

- Murv: Oh, wow.

- Chris: 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 of 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... - Murv: Yeah.

- Chris: ...and the final kiss goodbye 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... - Chris: Thank you.

- ...you know, people and, you know, the mannequins and things that are wearing the uniforms.

I mean, I-- 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.

- Yep, yep.

A lot of those actually are real people.

When the museum was done, there's a company on the East Coast called StudioEIS, and they can do castings of your face.

And so, we had people get their face molded, just some staff members, volunteers, you know, some other prominent veterans that helped construct that museum in 1993.

And they put 'em in the gallery.

There's one in the Mexican border with the guy on horseback and the guy with the motorcycle.

- Murv: Oh, yeah, yes.

- Chris: The guy on horseback still visits every now and then to check on himself.

[laughter] - Murv: To make sure you haven't replaced him with someone else?

- Chris: Exactly, yeah.

- 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, you know, I live on the East Side, near Union-- - Chris: Union Corners?

- Union Corners.

- Chris: Yep.

- And I've got the big, you know, gold statue right there in my neighborhood.

What 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 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 to 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 fair.

That was the Camp Randall of the war with Spain in 1898.

- Oh, wow.

- And there's a little plaque on the exhibition hall that commemorates that service.

But Camp Randall, the parade field at Camp Randall during the Civil War is today the gridiron.

It's actually the playing field in the stadium.

And if you, you know, 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.

- Murv: Yeah.

- 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.

- Murv: The Malt House bar, I understand, is that really a old post office, I thought I heard someone say?

- Yeah, it was one of the old post offices.

You know, and then you go to other places around the state, Argonne, the town of Argonne in northern Wisconsin, named after the World War I battle.

Dorchester has a monument to the famous Four Chaplains that died at sea from Dorchester.

None of them were directly connected to Wisconsin, although there were Badgers that died in the shipwreck.

But because it was the SS Dorchester that sank, they raised a monument there.

There's the Korean War Memorial up in Plover, you know?

There's an admiral has a park named after him up in Stevens Point.

Mitchell, you know, Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee.

- General Mitchell, right?

- General Mitchell, Billy Mitchell.

You know, and you start going down the list, and then you look at the national cemeteries and the state veterans cemeteries, you know, that are around the state.

Bob Uecker 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.

- Murv: Now, that one spot where a lot of the graduates from UW take their photographs coming into Camp Randall with the big pillars-- - Chris: Yep.

- Is that remnants of the original Camp Randall?

- Chris: 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 and is very famous, was raised by the G.A.R.

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 Randall.

- And if you know any-- - I was gonna say, how many soldiers do you think walked through those arches?

- 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 'em 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've 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 Paree)?"

So, in other words, how can these, all these returning servicemen, you know, are they really gonna stay in their small town when they've seen Paris, when they've seen other parts of the world?

You know, that's another human piece of it that people don't necessarily think about.

- Yeah, and earlier you mentioned "On, Wisconsin!"

as a battle cry.

- Chris: Yep.

- I had no idea that that song comes from, you know, Wisconsin military.

Explain that history.

- Chris: 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 up, 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 'em up the hill.

- Murv: Wow.

- One of the first two flags to break atop Missionary Ridge, or one of the first 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 regiment, 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 'cause 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 Manitowoc 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 same city, so you're serving with friends.

- Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that these are all volunteers back in those days, right?

- Chris: That's correct, that's correct.

The draft-- Of the 250-year history of the United States military, from 1775 to the present, only about 1/3 of that has been the draft.

The rest of the time it's been volunteer.

And, you know, we think of the draft because they had the peacetime draft all the way through Vietnam.

That has, 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 their right hand and go.

- Yeah, and one of the things I learned in listening to your team is some of these regiments were built on community and people were pulled from these 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 try and showcase a lot and try and point out where we can.

There are entire companies recruited out of the Indian reservations, the Native reservations.

It's really interesting how they-- No written language, but how you translate, transliterate that in the records.

There's a company of United States Colored Troops that comes out of Milwaukee to go serve in the United-- And couple of Black USCT Wisconsinites are at Appomattox, the surrender of Lee's army in 1865.

And there's, there are some that are liberated as slaves and end up here in Wisconsin after, you know, working or enlisting in the Union Army and end up here as Wisconsinites and are treated and no different than any other Civil War veteran, and that's something that should be mentioned, is the G.A.R.

never segregated in any way.

They actually had a few women members as well.

And the same was true of veterans organizations since.

And so, you know, you sometimes hear veterans say, "I see no color but green or blue," you know, whatever the service.

and you see that also in some of these veterans communities, too.

It's a really incredible story.

- Murv: Yeah.

What do you see, Chris, futurewise in terms of how this museum continues to be curated and how it grows and what's it gonna 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 collect, "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 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 you were to donate, if you were a veteran and you donated me your uniforms, we take on a legal and ethical obligation to make sure that 100 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're 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, "you know, set them up for success "to be able to carry it, "you know, to stand on our shoulders "and be able to carry it forward and continue the important mission that we do."

- Murv: Yeah.

And 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?

- One of the things that I'd like to see is I'd actually like to see... Oh, that's a tough question.

- Oh, come on.

You can handle this question.

- [laughs] So, one of the things that we'd like, actually, we'd like to see is we'd like 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.

- Murv: Yeah, 'cause it's all, we're all kind of living it, right?

- Chris: We're still living it.

- Yeah.

- Chris: And it's still in the fairly recent past.

But Desert Storm is over 30 years ago.

9/11 is gonna be 25 in 2026, you know, so getting those stories now from that generation of veterans is something that we'd really like to, you know, we'd really like to see more of.

That's a piece of the, a part of the collection that we're still trying to... - Murv: Is there a Wisconsin piece of history, 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... - Murv: Wow.

- ...and was from Wisconsin, had moved to New York, was there, and then joined the Army and afterwards retired back home.

So, you know, it's a, that's probably our closest tie.

- Murv: Yeah.

And we we talked about what you thought was, you know, 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 the, we have the flag from the 24th Wisconsin that Arthur MacArthur carried up Missionary Ridge.

- Mm!

- So, when I show it on tour, it's-- - Murv: And that's dating back to when again?

- That's from 1863, so it's a 160-year-old silk flag.

- Murv: Wow.

- 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.

- Murv: Wow.

- And it was carried at Gettysburg by the color bearer of the 2nd Wisconsin, who was shot five times, and actually was shot six times because the sixth bullet went through the brow of the cap but was too high for him to, you know, for it to strike his head.

- And give us a quick lesson on the Iron Brigade, 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 Hardee 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 fightin'.

This is the Army of 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 of.

- Murv: So, and as far as the name itself, they became the Iron Brigade because of their toughness, or how did they get that kind of-- - Because 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."

- Murv: Wow.

- And that's-- The name stuck.

- Murv: Yeah.

We're gonna wrap you up 'cause I know you've been here 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.

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 ancestors, 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, those two things make it very easy to come out, get out of bed every day.

- Murv: And if you had one superpower 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 we're working to exercise the option to buy the building where we are, and once that's done, we're-- The engineering is, the concept is, we're gonna tear down the existing building and build new and build a new purpose-built facility to the requirements that we talked about.

If I could wave a magic wand, it would be fully resourced tomorrow and we'd be able to get under way, but we're still, you know, we're still working through the engineering and we're still 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.

- Murv: Yeah.

- But it's gonna be exciting.

It's gonna 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.

- Chris: 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.

- Chris: Don't be a stranger.

- Murv: We appreciate you stopping in.