Naples military museum struggles to keep alive memories of those who gave some or all
Richard Heinrich remembers watching his mother at the kitchen table with the family's ration books trying to reconcile what she wanted to make for dinner with what she had rations for. Then she would develop a back-up plan in case the store didn't have all the ingredients, which happened often, he said.
"This is real. This is very real," Heinrich, 85, said as he pointed out ration books in a case at the Naples Airport inside America's Military and 1st Responders Museum. "This is history."
He points out a Florida flag display on a wall with hundreds of tiny United States flags on what look like toothpicks – each one represents someone from Florida who went to Vietnam and didn't come home.
Heinrich has many other stories – from his 30 years in the U.S. Coast Guard – and gets a little emotional when he stops at a case in the museum for something he has a memory about, such as one soldier's Desert Storm memorabilia and the ration books.
Fighting to preserve history
These are the kinds of stories, along with their artifacts, that the privately run museum, its volunteers – including Heinrich – and its executive staff are fighting to preserve.
With only 884 square feet for displays at the Naples Airport, many of the museum's approximately 12,000 items are in storage after the museum's space was reduced by the airport authority. The museum has been at the airport since 2011, in a terminal off North Road that previously was used for commercial flights but now is use for Net Jets luxury private planes, a pilot's lounge and rental car counters. Before that, the museum was just some tables set up throughout Punta Gorda.
'Walking on eggshells,' making a move
The museum fits well at the airport, said museum President Dave Hinds. The airport was built in 1942 by the Army Corp of Engineers as the Naples Army Airfield. At the peak of World War II, the airport was home to more than 75 fighter and bomber aircraft, as well as the pilots and aerial gunners who trained at the base.
But with so little room now, the museum will move.
When? Well, the answer is "eventually" and to 12,000 square feet – plenty of room for all the medals, uniforms, mannequins, books, flags, weapons, airplanes and tanks – anything anyone wants to donate, said museum President Dave Hinds. Collier County has offered to add the Military and 1st Responders Museum to its museum system and let Hinds move everything to a 17,000-square-foot building the county owns at 4110 Golden Gate Parkway.
Hinds was hoping to be in the new building by the end of the year. However, Collier County commissioners need to have some electrical and plumbing work done in the empty building and have applied for a $6 million grant from the federal government for a central office for veteran services and for the military museum. The museum's executive board is looking to donate some money to the project to help speed it along, he said.
"We're walking on eggshells now because I've been informed myself as president that they (Airport Authority) want to remodel from the restrooms the rest of the way up this year," Hinds said. The museum space is located just up from the restrooms across from the rental car counters in a terminal that once housed commercial airline terminals.
The museum already lost most of its space to a remodeled area now used as a pilot's lounge, he said. "I'm just waiting for someone to call and say, 'you got 30 days to pack up everything and move all your cases.'" If that's just for a remodel, Hinds said, he wouldn't want to move back there. "We don't have any room now."
Renovations approved April 24 by the Naples Design Review Board include a new coastal roof design, painting the building, adding new pavers, signage and covered parking; new ceiling, floors and paint throughout the inside of the building, along with the addition of a "grab-and-go" market area, according to a presentation from Orlando-based design firm Schenkel Schultz. The presentation, made to the Naples Airport Board in February, includes refinishing the ceiling and floor in the museum.
The project is expected to take 12 months after bidding and permitting, which is set to take place in May and June.
Meantime, Naples Airport Authority Executive Director Chris Rozansky said the airport has been happy to play host to the museum.
“Given our founding as an Army Air Base during WW II, the Naples Airport has been proud to be the home of the Naples Museum of Military History for decades," Rozansky said in an email. " We’re excited that a new dedicated museum will provide them more space to tell the heroic story of America’s military from the Revolutionary War through Afghanistan.”
“While they continue to develop this new space, we are honored to continue hosting the museum at the Naples Airport for our residents and visitors to continue to experience,” Rozansky said.
Glass cases, relics, memories of hand-to-hand combat
What the museum has room for now, Hinds said, are glass cases with relics of wars and conflicts from the Revolutionary to the War in Iraq. Most of the World War II items that started the museum are in storage now. There are also some first responder items, though not many, Hinds said. The museum changed its name to include first responders last year from Naples Museum of Military History. Hinds is a retired firefighter and arson investigator.
Among the cases in the room is one from Hinds' time in the U.S. Marine Corps., where he was wounded three times during a stint in Vietnam.
Inside the case are his Purple Heart medals; a camera his father gave him to take to Vietnam; grenades he emptied out and sent home to Ohio from Vietnam via the mail; his uniform; a handgun; replicas of the machine guns he used; and a knife he used in hand-to-hand combat.
In a foxhole with two other Marines, Hinds watched them die and then had to fight his way out when two Viet Cong soldiers came in after him.
"They were out of ammo, and I was out," he said. "One of them I used that knife on and the other I took care of with a little shovel I had."
The knife and the shovel are in the case.
"You're bound and determined not to be killed in a foreign land, so you do what you have to do," Hinds said standing in front of his case.
He has other stories – the ones you see in movies about burning villages, about sleeping in jungles, about eating only Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) and about not getting any mail or seeing any kind of city or commercial ventures.
"Some things you wonder, 'How did you get that,' " said Heinrich, who spent 30 years in the U.S. Coast Guard and originally is from Texas.
Like Hinds and his weapons and the grenades. Like the entire control panel of a UH-1 "Huey" helicopter. Like a paratrooper's parachute. Like the multiple fighter pilot helmets. Like the bell of the destroyer the USS Maddox, which was used in World War II, the Korean War and the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 off of North Vietnam where it was attacked.
These artifacts and the stories behind them are important, Heinrich said.
"If people don't understand the context of what happened, people are going to repeat it," he said. "You have to understand what happened in the past, but you have to learn from it."
A proposed veterans' campus
All of the memories and artifacts in the current room at the Naples Airport and in the 2,226 square feet in three storage hangars at the airport and four storage units nearby will fit in the Golden Gate Parkway building with room for more, Hinds said. More including larger items such as a Sherman tank Collier County owns, a P51 training plane and a military Jeep a veteran wants to loan, and maybe the parachute can be opened and hung from the ceiling, he said.
The museum pays about $1,200 a month in rent for storage, he said.
The Golden Gate Parkway building with a copper façade is adjacent to the entrance site of the future 120-bed state veteran’s nursing home on the Golden Gate golf course that is owned by the county. The building has sat empty for about five years, Hinds said.
About 23,000 veterans live in Collier County. The future nursing home with an adult-day-care component at the golf course and using the nearby building for the county’s veterans' services staff, would create a sort of “campus concept” for veterans, said Collier Commissioner Burt Saunders in March. His district includes the golf course, and he has been leading the project with the state.
Collier to Congress: Can you spare $6 million for local veteran's service center and museum?
New Naples airport? New Naples airport would take 15-20 years to open if decision made to move it
"People from all over the world come here," Heinrich said. He talks about a family from France that visited in April. "They were happy to see there was a display from Normandy."
Another family visited and the mother asked, "what can a parent learn?", he said. He starts with the war rations.
How to visit America's Military and 1st Responders Museum in Naples
Location: 500 Terminal Dr., Naples Airport, Naples, Florida
Hours of operation: The museum is open seven days a week – Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday from noon to 3 p.m.
Cost: admission is free; donations accepted.
Who works there: Docents are volunteers, most of them veterans.
What you will see: thousands of historical artifacts dating from 1775 to the present, from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf wars.
Donations accepted: No books; clean and in relatively good condition items from any war or conflict and first responder memorabilia.
Privately run: not-for-profit 501(c)(3) military museum.
Contact: Dave Hindsdavehindsusmc@yahoo.comPhone: (614) 205-0357
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Naples airport's military museum fights to preserve memories, history
