Memorial or Museum?

The New York Times has an interesting article today on the National September 11 Memorial:

Alice Greenwald, the director of the new museum, and her team must simultaneously honor the dead and the survivors; preserve an archaeological site and its artifacts; and try to offer a comprehensible explanation of a once inconceivable occurrence. They must speak to vastly different audiences that include witnesses at the scene and around the globe, as well as children born long after the wreckage had been cleared. And many of those listening have long-simmering, deeply felt opinions about how the museum should take shape.

I think this covers our first major issue: is this site going to be a museum about everything 3/3 did in Iraq and Afghanistan, an impartial look at what Marine life was like during the War on Terror, or a memorial to our fallen brothers and a monument to what we did?

In some ways, I think it should be all of the above: there’s definitely a tendency in history to sweep the bad under the rug, and overemphasize the good.  However, while going through the 3/3 command chronologies from World War 2 at the National Archives, I kept running into ‘lessons learned’ in 1944 that we were still relearning years later.


Site News: I’ve got all of November and December’s command chronologies logged; now I just have to add the pictures and any news articles.

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