NEW MEXICO HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HONORS MAMF WITH MEMORIAL BILL 28 IN THE STATE CAPITOL

Phot of entry to the New Mexico State Capitol

The “Whereases” kept coming, each one more laudatory than the preceding one as the New Mexico House of Representatives Chief Clerk read House Memorial Bill 28 “recognizing the Museum of the American Military Family and Learning Center and the Importance of the American Military Family.”

HM 28 was sponsored and introduced by Representative Bill McCamley, Democrat of Las Cruces, and supported by several Members of both parties testifying in favor of this Museum which is focusing on experiences such as their own growing up with or being married to a person serving in one of the military services. Representative McCamley cited his own life in the military and the work MAMF is doing as his reasons for sponsoring the Bill. » Read more

Some highlights from MAMF’s very busy 2014:

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better [person].     Benjamin Franklin

We at the Museum of the American Military Family would like to thank all of you who have helped us have a successful and wonderful year. We appreciate your kind words, support and participation! We look forward to a great 2015–

Some highlights from MAMF’s very busy 2014:

February

-Screened the Documentary Brown Babies at the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM

 March

Created two aprons for display as part of the Womyn’s Work Apron Project in Albuquerque

May through September

Exhibit: Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family at the National Nuclear Museum (seen by 17, 116 visitors)

Activities as part of the exhibit: » Read more

FAST-PACED FALL FOR MAMF

Allen Dale Olson, Secretary/Public Affairs

From Lovington to Los Alamos — “Sacrifice & Service,” the exhibit that attracted 17,116 visitors during its stay in the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History between Memorial Day and Labor Day, spent two months in the Lea County History Museum will spend December in the Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos.

 

 

“Sacrifice & Service” is very much on our minds these days, as it will return home to Albuquerque right after the New Year’s holiday, and though we have arrangements to store it, we are hoping to find it a permanent home.

Meantime, we have started another exhibit and we’re calling it “Schooling with Uncle Sam,” the story of the Defense Department Dependents Schools and the students and teachers who have experienced them. We hope to have it completed by spring 2015. » Read more

Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family is on Exhibit in Los Alamos through January 2, 2015

On December 4, 2014, Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family opened at the Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It was the third venue for the exhibit, which debuted in Albuquerque on Memorial Day, traveled to the Lea County Museum in October and November, and will spend December in Los Alamos.

On December 1, the exhibit was delivered by Jim Harris, Lea County Museum Director, who drove the exhibit up from Lovington . On December 3, MAMF Director Circe, and board members Joan and Ole set up the exhibit, along with Mesa Public Library personnel.

It seemed a near impossible task to have everything ready for the December 4 opening, but it came together.

 

Between the MAMF team, Katy, the library director and and Keith, from Los Alamos County, the exhibit came together mid-morning on the 4th. The Albuquerque Journal sent a photographer to take some photos to accompany an article slated to run in mid-December. » Read more

A Salute to Our Heroes

Man and woman saluting

On November 15, 2014, the Museum of the American Military Family, the City of Albuquerque , ChoppHearse, the Albuquerque Balloon Museum, and dozens of other organizations and groups collaborated on a “Salute to Our Heroes”. It was an amazing event.

Salute to Heros Poster

 

 

 

The event started off with a motorcade and a flag line. Museum visitors joined cadets from several JROTC and ROTC units, the Young Marines and Bataan Military Academy. Distinguished guests from the National Guard, the City of Albuquerque and Service Organizations joined the procession into the Balloon Museum, where Director Sandor Cohen welcomed them, saying,

“WE ARE TRULY HONORED TO BE HERE TODAY AS PART OF A VERY SPECIAL OCCASION THAT PAYS TRIBUTE TO OUR BELOVED VETERANS – DEFENDERS OF OUR FREEDM – AND TO SUPPORT A VERY SPECIAL NEW MUSEUM IN THE ALBUQUERQUE AREA THAT NOT ONLY HONORS THE HEROES IN OUR MILITARY…BUT THAT ALSO TELLS THE STORY OF THEIR FAMILIES AND LOVED ONES, WHO EQUALLY EXEMPLIFY THAT SAME SENSE OF DUTY AND SACRIFICE AND LOVE OF COUNTRY THAT WE FIND IN THOSE WHO SERVE.”

 

As part of the program, there was a very moving flag folding ceremony followed by MAMF Director, Circe Olson Woessner accepting the flag,  and reminding the audience,

“…So when celebrating Veterans Day, we should remember all of our Veterans, by thanking them for their service, listening to their stories…welcoming them home, but we also need to remember the ones who have died without ever telling their stories, the ones who are living in poverty on the streets, the ones that have no family or are being honored by strangers. Today, we specially honor them and welcome them to our family. ” » Read more

FOR MAMF, NO LAZY DAYS OF SUMMER

Raising flag

By Allen Dale Olson, MAMF Secretary/Public Affairs

When the MAMF exhibit, “Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family,” closed on August 31, it had seen 17,116 visitors since opening on May 26 in the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. And that doesn’t include the members of the Albuquerque Museum Collaborative Council or all the elementary and middle school kids who attended summer science camps in the Nuclear Museum. There were 145 VIPs at the Opening Reception on May 30.Sacrifice & Service Poster for Nuclear Museum

 

 

But the exhibit was more than an exhibit. There were book readings by Steve Sparks, R. Sam Baty, and J. Allen Whitt. Four Poets – Caroline LeBlanc, Circe Olson Woessner, Jacqueline Murray Loring, and Karen Bradberry entertained with touching and humorous excerpts from letters and messages about family life in the military. » Read more

Museum Celebrates Military Family History

By Iain McLellan

There is a museum celebrating military family history in Albuquerque New Mexico. It was founded by Army wife and mother and overseas “brat” Dr. Circe Olson Woessner and her father, DODDS administrator, Dr. Allen Dale Olson.

When asked about how the museum came about, Woessner recalls,

“One night I was watching TV while my son was deployed to Iraq and I thought about all the military families around the world who at that very moment had children or parents serving in harm’s way. All military families, from all generations, who have ever had a loved one deploy, have felt that curious blend of pride, of worry, of hope—and have had to draw on an inner strength to keep it all together outwardly, despite inner turmoil. That is something universal to military families throughout history.”

Upon this realization, Woessner put in some online queries about military families and came to the conclusion that she needed to create a museum entirely dedicated to the American Military Family.

“What we want to do in Albuquerque is to have a permanent, physical place where children, spouses, parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, partners of service members– from all generations, all branches–can visit and experience a museum entirely dedicated to their stories and their history.”

To Woessner, it is important for people to recognize these elements of service and appreciate the unique military family cultures and subcultures.

“We want to create a learning community where people can come and see history through a different filter, relive their own military roots, open dialogue between the generations and leave with a deeper appreciation of what it means to serve as a military family and to be a child moving from school to school, country to country as a ‘military brat.’”

Woessner believes that the lifestyles of the current generation of brats are very different from the ones she and older generations of brats knew.

“Although most of my brat peers are in their late 40s to late 60s and our experiences as brats are vastly different from the experiences of military kids today, we still have much in common –this is apparent when we meet—even as strangers—because we can instantly relate. It’s like that old saying: the more things change, the more things stay the same.”

In collaboration with the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, a Smithsonian affiliate, the Museum of the American Military Family created the exhibit, Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family. On its opening day, 300 visitors viewed the exhibit. In the months of June and July, approximately 15,000 visited the museum. After the exhibit closes at the end of August, the exhibit will travel to the Lea County Museum in Lovington, and to Los Alamos.

Although the Museum of the American Military Family is currently an online museum, the organization has been gifted seven historic military housing units from the early 1940ss and is in the process of fundraising to rehab them and set them in a permanent location in Albuquerque.

“With the help of grants and donations, we hope to have our groundbreaking in late 2014”, Woessner says. ‘We are really excited, so stay tuned! It is taking a village to raise this museum, and we are blessed to have so much support.”

Anyone interested in supporting this initiative should make contact with Dr. Woessner at circe@militaryfamily.org or at P.O. Box 5085, Albuquerque,

NM 87185. She can be reached by phone at (505) 504-6830.

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