Honoring American heroes from past century's wars

BRANSON, Mo. -- Fred Hoppe knows the realities of war are hard to portray in a museum setting. He wanted to try anyway.

For the past 25 years, Hoppe has collected blood-stained uniforms, weapons, stolen relics and soldiers' stories from nearly every American war fought over the past century.

What he's created in the Veterans Memorial Museum in Branson is an objective presentation of wartime artifacts with a reality that speaks for itself.

The museum, which opened last month and was dedicated Nov. 10, contains more than 2,000 exhibits spread across a series of corridors. Each hall represents a different conflict, from World War I to the Persian Gulf War.

Some of the exhibits are simply rare finds: Adolf Hitler's dog tags from World War I, a gas mask that fits over the head of a cavalry horse, a chaplain's folding organ, a bicycle used on the Ho Chi Minh trail to carry supplies in Vietnam.

Other artifacts reflect the boredom of war: The "trench art" made during the days and weeks of down time, the ash tray made from pieces of a broken helmet, the woman's makeup compact created from piston covers of a downed fighter plane.

Perhaps the most striking exhibit is a giant white wall covered with the names of the 406,000 soldiers who died in World War II. There are eight times as many names on this wall as there are on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., Hoppe says.

It took a group of 40 typists about four months to compile the names for the exhibit, which he believes is a first of its kind.

"You can't imagine how many young men died for freedom until you look at this wall," he says. "It's a pretty emotional thing for families to come in and find their relatives' names up there. A lot of them tell me it's the first time they've seen it in print."

Hoppe says he tried to personalize exhibits where he could. Each uniform on display is accompanied with a biographical sketch of the soldier who wore it.

"People don't think about the individual men who gave up their lives for this country. The monuments we have for them are not very educational and most of the war movies are just atrocious," Hoppe says. "I wanted to present something real."

Hoppe, 45, has been dealing with the realities of war since he was a child. His father returned from World War II a hero, with two Bronze Stars, four Purple Hearts and five battle stars. But that wasn't all he brought home.

"He was so crippled up from the war he couldn't even play baseball with me when I was a kid," Hoppe recalls. "Shrapnel would keep surfacing in his arm. I would go up and grab his arm and all of a sudden a piece of metal would come out of it. That happened for 15 years after he returned from war."

As a hobby when he grew older, Hoppe began interviewing other veterans about their wartime experiences. Their patriotism astounded him, and Hoppe decided he wanted to do something more for them. He promised his father and seven other men from his father's platoon that he would build a museum in their honor.

For years he applied to foundations and asked the wealthiest people in the country for money to back the project, but was turned down by everyone. During his search, five of the seven veterans he had made the promise to died -- including his father.

Suddenly, Hoppe felt an overwhelming sense of urgency.

"The WW II and Korean vets are dying at a rate of over 1,000 a day. If I didn't do this soon, there wouldn't be many left to see it," he says.

Hoppe, a free-lance sculptor, mortgaged his home and everything else he owned, and went to close friends for additional financial backing. He cut 70 tons of lumber from his own back yard and designed the 18,000- square-foot museum himself.

What critics said would take at least five years to build, Hoppe and a group of friends did in just 10 months.

"We worked night and day. My wife quit her job and I lost the shirt off my back. But we finished it in time for Veterans Day," he says. "The sacrifices they made in war were unfathomable and their stories too important to delay another day."

On a recent Saturday afternoon, veteran Clyde Martin, 79, seemed to appreciate the effort as he glided between museum exhibits in his motorized wheelchair.

"It's hard to look at some of this stuff. The war was no easy task, I assure you," Martin says. He was one of the signal corps men who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Martin pointed to the name of his wife's cousin on the World War II wall of fallen soldiers. "He was a medic and he had no gun," Martin says. "He didn't have much of a chance."

It's the kind of story Hoppe has heard time after time from veterans who have visited the museum since its opening.

One of Hoppe's favorite exhibits is a painting by the famous wartime artist Jim Dietz. It shows a young soldier carrying an officer out of enemy fire in a battle near Rome. The painting, called "Saving Lt. McMorrow," is of Hoppe's father -- Fred Hoppe Sr.

"We always knew about the rescue, but my father never talked about it. He had always said, `I'm not a hero, the heroes are still buried in the ground over there,'" Hoppe says.

"I wish Dad could be here to see how much of a hero he was to me."

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