Public Programs

Program Date Options:

February 10, 2021 at 10am EST

February 17, 2021 at 10am EST

February 24, 2021 at 10am EST

Join us to learn more about the African American Soldiers' journey for equal rights.

Generations of African Americans have served their country, many serving in segregated units and not always given the respect and honor due to them. Although African Americans fought with distinction in World War II, they returned home to a segregated America. In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which called for equal opportunity for all members of the Armed Forces. The segregated Army became a thing of the past and the segregation of American society began to crumble.

A Museum educator will guide the field trip, exploring the commitment, challenges, and bravery of African American Soldiers serving during World War II and examining artifacts, primary resources, and personal accounts.

Join Tammy Call, Director of the National Museum of the US Army on March 2, 2021, at 7pm, as she hosts a virtual panel discussion on Army values, with particular emphasis on women in the Army as soldiers and civilians. The program is free and open to the public.

Date: March 3, 2021

Time: 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST

Cost: FREE (pre-registration is required)

Join The Army Historical Foundation for a series of free virtual programs focused on the experiences of the American Soldier.

Throughout the history of the U.S. Army, many technologies and techniques developed by and for the Army have later found application in the civilian world. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the field of medicine. Since its establishment in July 1775, the U.S. Army Medical Department has led the way in many areas, to include medical evacuation, disease control, trauma medicine, and the development of prosthetics. 

This program will include an overview of medical innovations presented by the Foundation's Chief Historian, Matt Seelinger, followed by a panel discussion with active and retired Army medical personnel and a presentation of how the National Museum of the United States Army tells this story.

Panelists:

Scott C. Woodard: Woodard served in the U.S. Army for 22 years as a medical logistician and is currently an Historian in the Office of Medical History at the U.S. Army medical Department Center of History and Heritage, Medical Center of Excellence. He is a certified Military Historian from the U.S. Army Center of Military History and has been deployed to Kuwait and Afghanistan documenting and collecting Army medical history in addition to serving in Afghanistan as a Soldier. He holds a B.A. in History from The Citadel and a M.A. in Military Medical History from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He has presented at numerous academic symposiums and professional military programs and has published in peer-reviewed journals. His book, Combat Readiness through Medicine at the Battle of Antietam: The Human Face of Our Bloodiest Day, will be available this summer. 

SFC Hunter Paul Black: Black is currently serving in the U.S. Army as the Medical Center of Excellence 68W Enlisted Subject Matter Expert and Senior Training Developer. He also serves as a National Registry of EMTs Representative, Army Liaison to the NAEMT Military Relations Committee, and as a Committee Member of Tactical Combat Casualty Care. He has served throughout the United States and South America as a Combat Medic in generating and operating forces. He has received numerous awards and decorations for his service including the Meritorious Service Medal and is he is currently pursuing a B.A. in accounting from Fayetteville Technical University.

1SG Michael S. Eldred: Eldred is a consultant with various industrial leaders in military medicine and volunteers with the U.S. Army Medical Department Center of History and Heritage, Medical Center of Excellence. He served in the U.S. Army for over 30 years and was deployed to Central and South America, the Middle East, Korea, and Thailand. He served as a Combat Medic serving in the generating and operating forces. He has been involved with and consulted on improving the process of Emergency Care by the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care and was a voting member for over five years on the committee overseeing many of the new advances to prehospital medical care in the Army today. He has presented at numerous academic symposiums and professional military programs and has a B.A. in History from Excelsior University, New York.

Matt Seelinger: Seelinger is the Chief Historian of The Army Historical Foundation and Editor of the Foundation's magazine, On Point. He holds a B.A. in History from James Madison University and a M.A. in History from Ball State University. He has worked for The Army Historical Foundation since 1997.

Program Date Options:

March 10, 2021 at 10am EST

March 17, 2021 at 10am EDT

March 24, 2021 at 10am EDT

Virtual Field Trips connect students to the Museum all without leaving their desks. During this field trip, students will engage with the Army's history through artifacts, primary sources, and Soldiers' Stories. 

Join us to learn more about a group of women nicknamed, "computers," who programmed the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). Widely considered to be the first electric, digital, general-purpose computer, ENIAC was one of the most influential technological innovations of World War II. 

Virtual Book Talk with Author Katherine Landdeck

Join the National Museum of the US Army on March 18, 2021 at 7pm EDT for a live, virtual discussion with author Katherine Landdeck about her new book, The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Cornelia Fort was already in the air. At twenty-two, Fort had escaped Nashville's debutante scene for a fresh start as a flight instructor in Hawaii. She and her student were in the middle of their lesson when the bombs began to fall, and they barely made it back to ground that morning. Still, when the U.S. Army Air Forces put out a call for women pilots to aid the war effort, Fort was one of the first to respond. She became one of just over 1,100 women from across the nation to make it through the Army's rigorous selection process and earn her silver wings.

The brainchild of trailblazing pilots Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) gave women like Fort a change to serve their country- and to prove that women aviators were just as skilled as men. While not authorized to serve in combat, the WASP helped train male pilots for service abroad, and ferried bombers and pursuits across the country. Thirty-eight WASP would not survive the war. But even taking into account these tragic losses, Love and Cochran's social experiment seemed to be a resounding success- until, with the tides of war turning, Congress clipped the women's wings. The program was disbanded, the women sent home. But the bonds they'd forged never failed, and over the next few decades they came together to fight for recognition as the military veterans they were- and for their place in history. 

Katherine Sharp Landdeck, is a writer, Associate Professor at Texas Woman's University, and a globally recognized expert on the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, the subject of her debut book, The Women with Silver Wings. A Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where she was a Normandy Scholar and earned her Ph.D. in American History, Landdeck has received numerous awards for her work on the WASP and has appeared as an expert on NPR's Morning Edition, PBS, and the History Channel. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Time, as well as in numerous academic and aviation publications.