Author: MilitaryFamilyMuseum

Sunday, December 22 from 12:00 noon till 3:00 pm

         Tokyo Army Hospital, December 1954 – Patient Paul Zolbrod, a Jewish Korean War veteran, while convalescing from a mysterious disease which nearly killed him,  is surrounded by Turkish United Nations soldiers hospitalized with hemorrhagic fever. Their mutual circumstances of war, disease, and hospitalization, along with other patients, brought their customs, faiths, and countries together just in time for Christmas that year.

         Paul’s story – “A GI’s Christmas Carol”– is told in 30 hand-collaged panels of vintage photos, publications, original art and text about that time and that place in 1954 when Muslims, Jews, and Christians all celebrated a very special Christmas together in Japan.

         Paul, the Museum Emeritus Writer-in-Residence, will be on hand throughout the three-hour exhibit to interact with visitors. This heartwarming story assures, that for a while at least, the “Forgotten War” will not be forgotten.

         Visitors can also tour the other museum exhibits, including the story of the Department of Defense schools around the world and two special exhibits telling what it’s like to be a military spouse and to grow up as a military kid.

         Admission to the exhibit and museum is free: donations gratefully accepted.

Exhibit hours are 12:00 noon till 3:00 pm. Sponsors for A GI Christmas Carol-Tokyo Army Hospital 1954 include Rich Ford, Albuquerque, NM, Robert Farley Insurance, South Bend, IN and the American Legion Post 17, Espanola, NM. 

The Museum of the American Military Family is at 546B State Highway 333 (Old Route 66) in Tijeras (right next to Molly’s) seven miles east of Tramway.

Looking back at 2019, we, at the museum, feel a sense of accomplishment. We received an Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History for our short documentary film, Love Song for the Dead, received two major grants from New Mexico Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and we completed some much-needed renovations to the museum. Some of the renovations were planned—and cosmetic; some were brought on by the record snowfall which collapsed part of our roof. This last event made us all the more motivated to find a more modern space in 2020. 

So, despite being semi-closed for several months, we kept very busy. 

In January, TV station KRQE came out to do a story on our Lines Across Time phone booth (a collaboration between UNM Arts and Medicine and our museum). 

During the coldest months, we catalogued our over 1,700 books and folios in the online Library Thing data base and took possession of several collections of WWI and WWII artifacts and photos. We conducted several spouse and veteran focus groups at the museum, participated in a face-to-face veteran’s sensing session with New Mexico’s governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, and actively participated in local and regional Chambers of Commerce events.

In March, novelist Andria Williams visited the museum as well as did memoirist Candace George Thompson.  In April, we held our first naturalization ceremony of the year. (We host several such ceremonies every year.) We had our grand re-opening in April, and unveiled two new exhibits:Military Kids’ Lives and Together We Serve: The Modern Military Spouse. 

In May, the Poco Quatros car club visited, and their Model A’s parked in front of the museum made a lovely photo. Director Circe visited the West Baton Rouge Museum to finally meet the team she’d been collaborating with remotely. The museum was featured on KOB TV, and Cabinet Secretary Judy Griego and County Commissioner Charlene Pyskoty opened the museum’s exhibit, Still Shouting! We spoke at the Memorial Day Ceremony at the Sandoval County Vietnam Veterans Memorial and completed our walking path in the museum’s Memory Garden. And the month ended with a front-page Memorial Day article about MAMF in the Albuquerque Journal.”

The Route 66 automobile tour stopped at the museum as it crossed the state on the “Mother Road” in June— just in time to admire our brown attraction sign courtesy of the New Mexico Department of Transportation.  And, Arizona State Graduate student Sarah created and led a wonderful theater workshop for military kids in the area. Musican Jason Moon presented us with several music CDs for our collection. June was also the month in which MAMF Artist- in-Residence Lora finished up her project—a completed play—with a reading of it at TheatreLab in Richmond, VA.

In July, we swapped out Still Shouting, for our exhibit GI Jokes, and we received a grant to add ramps to our exterior doorways to make them wheelchair accessible. The Museum was accepted into the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s National Veterans Intermediary, and our East Mountain Veteran Families Collaborative was formed. The collaborative meets monthly and will focus on issues (and solutions) important to rural military families. 

July also brought more than a hundred former Defense Department teachers and administrators to our museum as part of their attendance at the annual Dodds Reunion held this year in Albuquerque. After his visit to the museum, along with his communications director, the DoDDS Director told the entire reunion of more than 800 former teachers from all over the country about the importance of our work and is now considering establishing a DoDDS-MAMF partnership.

In August, the New Mexico Department of Veterans Services —  — and the museum– held a community outreach event, with vendors and helping agencies on site to assist veterans and family members with benefits, healthcare referrals, information, etc. We held our second outreach in October. 

In September, author Kathleen Rogers came to visit. (She’s featured in our Modern Military Spouse exhibit). The Museum hosted the monthly meeting of the Albuquerque Museum Collaborative Council, a group of museum professionals representing all the major museums in the city. It was great to show off the museum to our peers, many of whom were seeing it for the first time. 

A group of Brats on an OASIS excursion came to the museum for a two-hour tour, but as what typically happens, once the stories started flowing, and connections made, the two hours extended to three…then four, and finally, we had to send them packing!

In November, we broadcasted KUNM’s “Children’s Hour” radio show live from the museum. In December,ber we will present a one-day exhibit and program “A GI’s Christmas Carol: Tokyo Army Hospital, 1954”.

These instant community moments happen often at the museum—and is at the heart of our mission and vision. We bring people with “shared and converging paths together as community, inspiring a sense of place and history. As a repository for their stories, we shape the future by preserving our heritage, recording its evolution, and inviting dialogue by sharing our experiences with the world.”

Daily, family members drop off mementoes, letters, photographs, and artifacts knowing that they will find a caring and lasting “home” for items they treasure and want to share with others. Often, the donor leaves our museum feeling relieved and proud that their loved one’s legacy will live on.

This is why we do what we do. Military families—the parents, spouses and children’s sacrifices, service, and support are often overlooked. We shine a light on the family’s accomplishments, struggles, and pride through our exhibits, workshops, publications, and programming. 

Like many nonprofits, we are gearing up for #GivingTuesday, which is celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving. If you are planning to partake in this “Global Day of Giving,” we hope you consider our small, but mighty museum! 

We have big things planned for 2020 — continuing with our programs and exhibits, as well as procuring our own permanent building. That, of course, will come with a big price tag, and so we will be rolling up our sleeves and striding out in January. We will need to raise around $350,000 to make our dream a reality; and, we owe it to our military families to move to a bigger and more accessible location to ensure their legacy is preserved.

To donate to our museum’s building fund, please donate at: https://www.facebook.com/fund/MuseumoftheAmericanMilitaryFamily/

For further information please contact:

Military Kid Art Project

2600 Hull St. Richmond VA 23224

Lora Beldon

LKBeldon@hotmail.com

804-614-8478

Museum of the American Military Family & Learning Center

546B State Route 333, Tijeras, NM  87059
info@militaryfamilymuseum.org

TheatreLab

(804) 506-3533
info@heatrelabrva.org

Real stories from real people:
LGBTQ+ Veterans and Family Members of the U.S. Military Services.

Playwright and Director: Melissa Rayford
Producers: Lora Beldon and DeeJay Gray

SHOUT!  is an ensemble production which includes compilations of true LGBTQ+ Military Family stories – from multiple generations and military branches, spanning rank, race, gender, and socio-economic backgrounds. 

Sponsored by the New Mexico-based Museum of the American Military Family & Learning Center (MAMF), SHOUT! is a collaboration between Lora Beldon, Director of Military Kid Art Project, the Transgender Veterans Support Group of Richmond, and TheatreLab. Funding for the project came through a generous grant by the ARCUS Foundation. 

SHOUT!  The play began as one story told by Theresa Duke, a trans-woman veteran for the museum’s anthology, SHOUT! Sharing Our Truth: An Anthology of Writing by LGBT Veterans and Family Members of the U.S. Military Services.  Lora Beldon, MAMF Artist-in-Residence, and MAMF Director Circe Olson Woessner were the anthology’s co-editors. 

That piece, titled Inner Voices, had such strong descriptive dialogue, editors Beldon and Woessner agreed the story would translate well on stage. The play quickly grew to include many voices and stories from LGBTQ+ Military personnel and families and evolved into SHOUT! the play. 

Beldon says, “MAMF has done, and is doing, pioneer work in telling the story of the LGBTQ+ military veteran and family members through exhibits and publications at the museum and out in the community. Dr. Woessner is a visionary, who has maintained from the beginning that the museum would tell the stories of ALL military families and be inclusive of all. 

Shared stories are what help build and define our identity, shared stories are what help communities learn from each other, and by listening to these particular stories, people who haven’t experienced what LGBTQ veterans or their families have– just their listening and learning is a gift.”

Playwright Melissa Rayford seamlessly wove together multiple stories contributed by service members, military spouses, brats, and allies into a strong, thought-provoking and poignant piece. Five Richmond actors, assuming multiple roles, bring the piece to life. Shout! is at once funny, sad, defiant, and whimsical. 

One story’s author shares, “Those fantasies of aliens coming down from space to switch your body with the neighbor girl’s body, those were mine.” 

Woessner says, “This play is exceptionally timely because of recent announcements from the White House regarding transgender citizens serving in the military, and the subsequent legal and political actions around that; and it also discusses how the military impacted the lives of LGBTQ spouses and children. As always, we want to focus on family stories.”

Ambitious future plans are in the works for Beldon and Woessner: to package the play for greater circulation and to create educational materials based on LGBT military history and stories in the play. Playwright Mellissa Rayford says, “It is our hope as a group that we create a production to be used by any theatre group wishing to produce this subject matter.” 

SHOUT! will be traveling to Boston and to Albuquerque in late 2019. 

TheatreLab, located in The Basement, 300 East Broad Street

Richmond, VA 23219, is known as Richmond’s home for unexpected and evocative performances. Link for tickets: https://tlab-internet.choicecrm.net/templates/TLAB/#/events

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
Sunday, September 22 and Monday, September 23, 2019.  Each night doors open 7:00pm, General admission Tickets $20. There are discounts available for pre-sale, students, teachers, military and senior all with ID.

Contact:  Ron Bassford                                                          For Immediate Release

Public Affairs Specialist                                                                 September 6, 2019

NMVAHCS to Host 2nd Annual Suicide Prevention Motorcycle Ride

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center will be hosting its second annual New Mexico Veterans S.A.V.E. Motorcycle Ride to help promote suicide prevention awareness throughout our state. 

“Suicide is something I have personally experienced. A high school friend committed suicide, and when I was in my early 20s, another good friend took his life,” said Richardo Vallejos, State Road Captain for the American Legion Riders, Chapter 22. 

This years’ ride will take place in Northern and Southern New Mexico. Approximately 50 motorcyclists from Albuquerque through the northern route; Tijeras, Espanola, and Taos, around the “Enchanted Circle,” and the ride’s final stop will be in Angel Fire, New Mexico. Approximately 50 more motorcyclists will also participate in the southern route which will start at the American Legion Post 10 and wind itself around Las Cruces and end at the local Veterans Memorial Park.  At each stop, suicide prevention information will be available to both riders and members of the local community. 

The American Legion Riders of New Mexico will be coordinating the route/s. 

The 2nd Annual motorcycle ride from Albuquerque to Angel Fire will take place on Saturday, September 7, starting at the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center, with a kick-off ceremony at 730 a.m. and kickstands up at 8 a.m.  There will be a remembrance service on Sunday morning at the Angel Fire Vietnam Memorial. The motorcycle ride in Las Cruces will be on September 8, starting at the American Legion Post 10 (1185 E Madrid Ave.), with the kick-off ceremony at 830 am and kickstands up at 0900. The ride will end at Veterans Memorial Park and will be followed by a memorial.

“With this ride open to the public, we hope to increase awareness that suicide can be prevented, and services are available to veterans across New Mexico,” said Christina Camacho, NMVAHCS Social Worker. 

This ride also coincides with September being suicide prevention month and the Department of Veterans Affairs campaign of #BeThereserves as a reminder that we all have a role to play in preventing Veteran suicide.

For more information/questions about the S.A.V.E. motorcycle ride, volunteer opportunities, or to donate, please contact Christina Camacho at (505) 265-1711, ext. 3056.