Nat'l Infantry Museum gets more funding

American flags dot the site of a planned memorial to the 173rd Airborne Brigade, July 2008. The National Infantry Museum is visible in the background. (Dave Bender)

The National Infantry Museum in Columbus in western Georgia, set to open next year today got some added financial firepower aimed towards that goal.

Carl Gregory, who owns a local Chrysler dealership is donating $250,000 to the project. Gregory says it’s a show of support for American troops.

Retired major general Jerry White directs the NIF, who are building and will operate the new museum:

“We’ve raised 82 million dollars… but we’re going to have to raise a total of a 100 million to cover all the costs.”

The federal government is funding 27 million dollars towards the center, with the state adding in another five million.

A crane hoists a Bradley Fighting Vehicle into place at the museum, June, 2007. (Dave Bender)

The presentation of the check was held before a World War II Chrysler M-3 tank, one of 25,000 the automaker built for the army during that period:

“In fact, General Patton, when he went to north Africa at the beginning of World War II, departed from Fort Benning and he deployed in an M-3 tank made by the Chrysler corporation.”

The 200 acre center is taking shape alongside Fort Benning, the home of the infantry, paratroopers, and the Army Rangers, among other ground and mechanized units.

The 185,000 square-foot museum replaces an older facility, which was closed earlier this year.

But, White says, the battle for adequate funding isn’t over yet:

“The fundraising is at a critical place, now, and we need all the help we can get to complete the project so we can honor soldiers for what they have done for us.”

The new museum is set to open in 2009. It will include a 3-D IMAX Theatre and interactive displays of the Army infantry’s history, a seven-acre parade field, and a memorial walk of honor.

Ceremonial infantry soldier's shovel with Army Airborne infantry patch, and construction helmet at the 173rd Brigade memorial groundbreaking, July, 2008. The National Infantry Museum is visible in the background. (Dave Bender)

Click here for more GPB News coverage of events at the National Infantry Museum and Fort Benning.

More details about the museum are available here.

Feds detain illegal workers at Nat'l Infantry Museum

National Infantry Museum, under construction in June, 2007.
(Dave Bender)

Federal law-enforcement officials arrested 30 undocumented workers at Columbus's National Infantry Museum, under construction adjacent to Ft. Benning earlier this week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the construction workers at the site on Tuesday, Oct. 30. Agents caught two who tried to flee.

Museum spokesperson Cyndy Cerbin says the workers were not on the base itself:

“The National Infantry Museum is being built on property owned by the National Infantry Foundation, and it is not federal property – part of Ft. Benning.”

Ft. Benning's Public Affairs Office refused to comment on the case, and directed all inquires to Batson-Cook, general contractors for the museum.

Eddie Sanders, site project manager for Batson-Cook, says his company is cooperating with federal authorities on the case. Sanders says the workers were employed by subcontractors "to perform various trades on the project," and not by Batson-Cook:

"Batson-Cook files all federal, state and local laws, as well as our subcontractors regarding hiring practices."

Sanders says the workers "are innocent until proven guilty," and were not on Ft. Benning property at any time. He declined to name the subcontractors, only saying that, "Since they [ICE] are conducting an investigation, we would not be able to release that information at this time."

Project Executive Paul Meadows told the Ledger-Enquirer newspaper that those arrested worked as masons, fireproofing, and metal stud tradesmen and included local and out-of-town subcontractors.

Referring to the subcontractors, Sanders said, "There are several contractors we work with frequently," adding, "...they abide by the federal, state and local laws and regulations."

Sanders said that the number of workers, including subcontractors and employees on-site averaged "from 75 to 90 -- right around there. It kind of fluctuates from day-to-day."

Richard Rocha, a spokesman for ICE says the detainees are mostly from Mexico:

“Most of the people apprehended on Tuesday are from Mexico. There are 27 from Mexico, three from Guatemala, Those individuals will be processed throught the immigration court system...”

Seven of them were arraigned today, several on charges that included illegal re-entry, misuse of a social security number, and fraudulent use of an alien registration card, according to US Georgia Middle District attorney Max Wood in Macon.

The detainees were taken to the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, and will face deportation hearings in coming days.

The museum is set to open next year.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the National Infantry Museum.

Click here for GPB coverage of immigrant affairs.

Congress okays $6M for Nat'l Infantry Museum

Officials attend installation ceremony of armored vehicle
at National Infantry Museum, June, 2007. (Dave Bender).

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have agreed to include $6 million for construction of a "Soldier Center" as part of the National Infantry Museum, currently under construction next to Ft. Benning in Columbus.

The funds will appear in the 2008 Defense Appropriations bill, officials with the museum's backers, the National Infantry Foundation (NIF), say. The facility is expected to open next year.

After a final vote by House and Senate, the appropriation then goes to President Bush for his approval, according to Second Congressional District representative Sanford Bishop (D). Bishop is a supporter of the project.

NIF President Jerry White said in a statement released on Wednesday,

"Together with the $5 million provided through Congressman Bishop’s work last year for the parade field component of the project, today’s conference committee action represents a very powerful vote of confidence by Congress in support of this long overdue tribute to Infantrymen."

NIF spokesperson Cyndy Cerbin says of the $86 million project:

"If the federal money is approved... we will have raised about $76 million to date."

Work crews set donated Army Bradley Fighting Vehicle, that saw
action in Iraq into display position at museum. (Dave Bender)

The project includes a 185,000-foot museum, a seven-acre parade field, a memorial walk of honor, an "authentic World War II Company Street," and a 3-D IMAX Theatre.

Click here for more GPB News coverage about the museum.

National Infantry Foundation unveils soldiers' sculptures

Entrance road to the museum, December, 2008. (Dave Bender)

The National Infantry Foundation on Thursday unveiled a sample of 50 life size sculptures of military personnel that will be included in the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center at Fort Benning, near Columbus, Ga.

Thirty-eight of the sculptures are of infantry troops, and the remaining 12 represent other historic figures.

The sculptures are modeled after live U.S. Army soldiers who each had to go through a three-hour-long casting process, according to a statement.

The museum is scheduled to open in March, 2009.

A crane hoists a Bradley Fighting Vehicle into place at the museum, June, 2007. Due to its size and weight, the vehicle was installed early on, in order to fit into the facility before the walls went up. (Dave Bender)

(PRNewswire)

Click here for more about the National Infantry Museum.

Columbus: Nat'l. Infantry Museum gets Bradley Fighting Vehicle

Crane gingerly lifts vehicle to waiting
construction team. (Dave Bender)

An Army Bradley Fighting Vehicle that saw heavy action in Iraq was donated Thursday morning to the new National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning.

The 25-ton weapon was hoisted into place two stories off the ground on a reinforced steel platform.


Construction workers align Bradley on
cradle in museum (Dave Bender)

BAE Industries, who make the gun-studded armored car, made the donation at a ceremony among the girders and hard-hats at the still-under-construction, 180,000 square-foot facility.

Company officials say the vehicle saw hard fighting with the 4th Infantry Division around Baghdad in 2004.

Mark Willhoft, BAE project manager: “It was hit by an IED and had pretty significant damage to it; and we were able to take it in and refurbish it, and supply it back to the museum for display here at the new building.”

Soldiers manning the vehicle were not hurt in the attack.

Close to 40 Columbus and state officials, National Infantry Foundation and army representatives broke into applause as the vehicle was deftly set down for future generations to see.

Andy Hove, BAE Systems’ director of Bradley Combat
Systems looks on as workers remove cables.
(Dave Bender)
The museum is set to open late next year.

AT&T: $1 Million to Nat'l Infantry Museum

Officials, press gather at museum ceremony, June, 2007. (file photo/Dave Bender)

AT&T Inc. says it's donating $1 million to the National Infantry Foundation for the construction of the new National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center. NIF president, Jerry White:

"This gift not only affirms AT&T's commitment to the communities it serves, it demonstrates the company's allegiance to soldiers and their families and the sacrifices they make for our freedom."

The museum, being built in Columbus alongside Ft. Benning, is set to open in 2008.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the museum's construction.

Senators want to mint new coin

U.S. flag in front of the uncompleted National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning near Columbus. (Dave Bender)

U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson want the U.S. Treasury to mint a memorial coin for the Nation Infantry Museum, set to open early next year.

They are calling on the Secretary of the Treasury to mint 350,000 silver coins honoring soldiers and commemorating the creation of the new infantry museum, according to a statement.

Sale of the coins would raise $3.5 million for the museum.

NIF officials say they’ve raised over 80 million of the 100 million dollar project so far.

Click here for more GPB News coverage about the museum.

Infantry Museum Opens

The National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning is officially open. The ceremony and ribbon-cutting in west Georgia Friday morning was bolstered by some star power--retired four-star General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke at the event.

The focal point of the $100-million project is the museum honoring the 234-year history of the U.S. Army Infantry. Also included at the complex is Patriot Park, with markers honoring the fallen.

The Infantry Museum has extended hours this opening weekend, from 9am to 8pm on Saturday and Sunday.

2008 State budget earmarks $21M for Columbus projects

Two Columbus projects got a serious financial boost when Gov. Sonny Perdue signed the 2008 Georgia budget into law late Wednesday.

Just over $16 million dollars went to Columbus Technical College's health sciences building, and five million was set aside for the National Infantry Museum. The $85 million project is under construction at Ft. Benning.

"We are very lucky that we have $21 million coming to Columbus," said state Rep. Richard Smith, R-Columbus told the Ledger-Enquirer newspaper. "If you look at the numbers, Columbus did quite well."

National Infantry Museum Foundation Executive Director Ben Williams: "[Perdue] knew we were attempting to not only raise money here, but also nationally," adding, "Having the state of Georgia support the project at this level is a wonderful stamp of approval for us."

The museum installed a Bradley Fighting Vehicle among the facilities' steel construction girders in a ceremony on Friday.


Crane hoists vehicle into place
(Dave Bender)

$1M boost for Infantry Museum

Georgia’s new National Infantry Museum has a $1 million-dollar boost. The Columbus-Ledger Enquirer reports At&T stepped in with the donation to the future Columbus museum. The museum is slated to be built next to Fort Benning, where the nation’s infantry is based. Organizers have raised $77 million dollars.

WWII hero donates $2.5 M to infantry museum

The retired chairman and CEO of United Technologies has pledged $2.5 million towards the National Infantry Museum, now under construction at Fort Benning near Columbus.

The pledge by Harry Jack Gray, and his wife, Helen is the project's largest individual donation to date, according to an NIF statement.

Gray received a silver and bronze medal for bravery in two battles in Europe during World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge. The museum's mezzanine area will be named for the 2nd Infantry Regiment, Gray's unit in the war.

Conglomerate United Technologies, among its other industries builds weapons systems for the military, including the Black Hawk helicopter, and Pratt &Whitney aircraft engines.

Click here for more GPB News coverage about the museum, which is scheduled to open in March, 2009.

One-dollar coin to honor US Army Infantry, fund museum at Ft. Benning

The US House of Reps passed a legislation today authorizing a commemorative $1 coin to honor the US Army Infantry and to help fun the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Ga.

The coins would be sold for $10 with some proceeds used to create an endowment fund for the museum, which is already under construction. The coin design would demonstrate courage, pride, sacrifice, sense of duty and the history of the Army Infantry.

Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville and Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany, Ga. introduced and co-sponsored the legislation.

The measure still needs approval from the Senate and faces heavy competition from other commemorative coin proposals.

Museum Could Bring Jobs and Millions

A study projects that Columbus might get an annual $26.3 million economic boost with the opening of the new National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning. The Columbus State University study projects between 380,000 and 400,000 museum visitors a year, 95 percent of them from out of town. The study concludes that 520 jobs will be created through employment at the museum and other new businesses in the city that hire staff, and existing businesses that add employees to take advantage of the increase in tourism. The $91 million museum, which will be opened Friday with a visit by retired Gen. Colin Powell, is expected to benefit the south Columbus area, which for years has been a center for nightclubs and cheap motels.

(Associated Press)

Nat'l POW/MIA Recognition Day

Fort Benning will commemorate National POW/MIA Recognition Day with a brief ceremony at 3 p.m. Sept. 19 in front of the former National Infantry Museum, according to the Public Affairs Office.

National POW/MIA Recognition Day was first commemorated on July 18, 1979, and has been recognized by presidential proclamation on the third Friday of September since 1986.

Since World War I, more than 10,000 American service members have been listed as missing in action. Thousands more have been incarcerated as prisoners of war.

The National Prisoner of War Museum at Andersonville is holding a series of commemoration ceremonies.

Click here for Department of Defense links with more information about U.S. service personnel POW and MIA's.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of events at Fort Benning.

Kucinich calls for closing Ft. Benning school

Kucinich addressing the rally. (Dave Bender)

Ohio Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich told protesters outside the gates of Fort Benning, today that, if elected, he would close an on-post school that trains Latin American military personnel.

"Today I'm here in solidarity with people from all over the world, who are, who are demanding... that America take a new direction."

Opponents of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation – once known as the School of the Americas - charge that it trains personnel that have been involved in killings and human rights abuses in their home countries.

SOA founder Fr. Roy Bourgeois (blue shirt), and Kucinich comfort a Guatemalan woman, Adriana Bartow and her daughter, Sarina Carrillo sobbing against the fence. The two women, who now live in Chicago said they were grieving over the loss of seven members of their family to military forces in their country in 1981. (Dave Bender)

The weekend-long event, organized by the School of the Americas Watch, culminated with Sunday's march, a mock funeral procession, and a mass "die-in," along the post perimeter fence.

Columbus Police Chief Ricky Boren said that Ft. Benning military police detained 10 protesters for trying to infiltrate onto the post. They were caught climbing over the perimeter fence at two locations, both of which were near the construction site of the National Infantry Museum on Lumpkin Road, Boren said.

Two protesters demonstrate "waterboarding," a controversial interrogation technique, opponents consider a form of torture. The willing subject of this simulation was unrestrained, and emerged unharmed from the brief exhibition. (Dave Bender)

Local officials said that on Saturday a similar number of residents and soldiers attended a day-long counter-rally downtown, calling it God Bless Fort Benning (GBFB), in a show of support for the infantry training facility.

Columbus Mayor Jim Weatherington who took an active part in the previous day's activities at GBFB, commented on the SOA Watch rally, saying:

"...We don't support it, but it's our job to make sure that folks can demonstrate -- but they can demonstrate peacefully."

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the SOA Watch protest.

Leading Columbus philanthropist, business leader dies

Carl Lloyd Patrick, the co-founder of the Columbus-based Carmike movie theater chain, was 88-years-old when he passed away on Wednesday.

Patrick was a highly-regarded community, corporate and philanthropic leader in Columbus for decades. He and his family donated generously to many organizations and charities, among them St. Francis Hospital and Columbus Technical Institute. Their philanthropy was recognized by first lady Rosalyn Carter.

Patrick fought as a paratrooper in Italy in World War Two and left the army at the rank of major. His bullet-riddled uniform is on display at the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning.

He is survived by his wife and brother, two sons and two grandsons. Patrick will be laid to rest on Friday.

House approves $1.2 million for Ft. Benning

Congress has approved a bill giving Ft. Benning $1.2 million dollars to upgrade facilities.

The earmarked funds are part of nearly one hundred and sixteen million dollars approved by the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. Those funds are slated for improving military housing, and bettering family and community services at the sprawling post.

The funds are part of the over one-billion-dollar 2008 Defense Appropriations bill. The money will go towards re-stationing military forces now deployed in Germany and other countries, back in the US.

The bill is in addition to the ongoing BRAC -- Base Realignment and Closure -- program.

The nearby National Infantry Museum, now under construction will also receive over seven million dollars in aid, as part of the overall package.

The entire House and Senate must still pass the bill.

Perdue's line item vetos for '09 budget

Governor Perdue line-item vetoed $142 million in cash this year, including cash projects and debt service on $22 million in vetoed bond projects. The Governor’s vetos break down as follows:

Department of Economic Development:

• $125,000 to the Tourism program for the development of a five year business plan for the Georgia Tourism Foundation
• $150,000 to the Tourism program for the restoration of Augusta's historic Powder Works chimney
• $3,000,000 to the Tourism program for the National Infantry Museum
• $250,000 to the Tourism program for the Georgia International and Maritime Trade Center Authority to perform an economic impact and environmental improvement study

Department of Education:

• $900,000 to the Technology/Career Education program in order to provide funds for a Classroom Technology initiative

Department of Human Resources:

• $31,007 for the Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund program to provide for increased operating expenses

Department of Juvenile Justice:

• $600,000 for the Children and Youth Coordinating Council for “Connecting Henry, Inc” to provide for a multi-jurisdictional collaborative to address the high drop out rate in the community

Department of Public Safety:

• $250,000 to the Field Offices and Services program for the purchase of equipment for the Columbia County State Patrol Post
• $250,000 to the Public Safety Training Center to fund expenses for the North Central Georgia Law Enforcement Academy

The Board of Regents:

• $360,000 to the Public Service/Special Funding Initiatives program for the Georgia Water Planning and Policy Center at Albany State University and Georgia Southern University
• $200,000 to the Teaching program for the planning and implementation of a program at Kennesaw State University for disadvantaged youth

Department of Technical and Adult Education:

• $25,000 to the Economic Development (QuickStart) program for Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) job retraining program for Atlanta Technical College
• $250,000 to the Technical Education program for the creation of a college and technical facility in Catoosa County at Bentley Place

Department of Transportation:

• $5,200,000 to the Airport Aid program for the Paulding County Regional Airport ($4,000,000), Cherokee County Airport Authority ($700,000), and the Glynn County Airport Commission ($500,000)

The General Obligation Debt Sinking Fund:

• $683,200 to finance educational facilities for county and independent school systems through the State Board of Education specifically for the design and construction of a charter school to be operated by the Cobb County School System through the issuance of $8,000,000 in 20-year bonds
• $1,155,000 to finance educational facilities for county and independent school systems through the State Board of Education specifically for career and vocational equipment per House Bill 905 through the issuance of $5,000,000 in 5-year bonds
• $657,580 to finance projects and facilities for the Department of Transportation, specifically for rail lines for Lyerly to Coosa, Nunez to Vidalia, Ardmore to Sylvania, St Augustine Road Rail Switching Yard Expansion and McNatt Boulevard Extension rail crossing through the issuance of $7,700,000 in 20-year bonds
• $170,800 to finance projects and facilities for the Department of Transportation, specifically for the construction of a welcome center for Tallulah Falls on the Rabun County side through the issuance of $2,000,000 in 20-year bonds