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BG John C.L. Scribner Texas Military Forces Museum Camp Mabry • Austin, Texas NewsQuarterly Summer 2012 In this issue 3 Director’s Corner Jeff Hunt Residents of Tarrytown, the neighborhood adjacent to Camp Mabry, got a close look at 4 the truck during their Fourth of July parade. Deputy Director’s Report Lisa Sharik WWII Fire Truck Joins Collection The newest addition to the Texas Military Forces Museum’s collection of historic vehicles – a Class 500 Fire Truck – is now on display in the Great 5 Hall. This is a very special artifact with a very special story. Exhibits Report Edward Zepeda This fire truck was delivered to the United States War Department by the Ford Motor Company on June 19, 1943 and first saw service at McCloskey General Hospital in Temple, Texas, before being transferred to Camp Swift 6 near Bastrop, Texas, in either 1943 or 1944. The truck’s firefighting equip- Foundation Update Continued on page 2 Tim Weitz VOLUNTEER OF THE QUARTER: George Necer 7 Long-time museum volunteer and leather Muster Day and specialist George Necer has lived a varied, Close Assault interesting life with many accomplishments. Born into a family of photographers, George 8 endured the German occupation of France as Upcoming Events a young child. He speaks, reads and writes English, French and Spanish, as well as a smat- and Contact Info tering of German and Italian. Among his many talents, George is a horseman, photographer, Continued on page 2 2 WWII Fire Truck Joins Collection, continued ment was provided by American LaFrance — one of the Special thanks to the following soldiers oldest manufacturers of such equipment in the United and volunteers who restored this vehicle: States, the company was founded by Truckson LaFrance and his partners in 1873. Capable of pumping 500 gallons MUSEUM VOLUNTEERS of water a minute at 120 pounds per square inch of pressure, this vehicle was a standard piece of equipment Glen Villoz – recovery, mechanical, research on most military installations and primarily designed to Chris Hunt – recovery, mechanical, research fight structure fires. The vehicle remained in service at Jeff McDonald – recovery, mechanical Camp Swift until the late 1970s, when it was transferred to Damon Lopez – recovery, mechanical the Bastrop Volunteer Fire Department, which used the Roger Dean – research and equipment truck into the early 1990s before retiring it from service. Ed Hall – equipment David Gruetzner – equipment In 2009, Specialist Alan Donaldson — a Texas National Guardsman assigned to Range Control at Camp Swift CSMS #2 CAMP MABRY and a volunteer with the Bastrop Fire Department — contacted the museum about the location of the fire truck, Kirk Smith – project manager, body work, paint and assembly which was then sitting neglected in an open field not far Steven Pavitt – media blast, body work, paint, assembly from its old Camp Swift home. Specialist Donaldson and electrical helped facilitate the donation of the truck to the museum. Jared Harris – hose reel and tank fabrication In 2009 museum volunteers recovered the vehicle, and assembly repaired the engine, tires and brake systems and prepared Jason Quigley – media blast, paint and assembly it for further restoration by Combined Support Mainte- Reginald Blue – body work nance Shop #2 at Camp Mabry. Here, extensive body Alicia Alva – upholstery work, including the fabrication of damaged or missing Thomas Funkhouser – miscellaneous parts fabrication parts, a rewiring of the electrical system and radiator Terry Neidig – stencils repairs were completed. The operational fire truck was Brian Rivera – wood work returned to the museum for exhibit in May and is already a big hit with visitors. VOLUNTEER OF THE QUARTER: Continued reporter, journalist, lecturer, leather artist and author. His book, Saddles of the World, is the definitive book on the subject. George is often contacted to identify rare or unusual saddles and his articles have appeared in many different magazines. At the museum, George takes care of our leather items, preserving, conserving and restoring them when needed. He does his work in the gallery so that he can share his love and knowledge of leather with our visitors. As a docent at the front desk, he is a friendly, knowledgeable presence and his language skills often come in handy when we have visitors from other countries. George and his lovely wife, Juanita, live in Austin, Texas. 3 Director’s Corner JEFF HUNT One of the perks of this job is interact- panels and label text would be accurate, ing with folks who have never been to informative and visual appealing as well the museum or who haven’t visited in a as effective. long time. Generally, they are awed by how big we are, how remarkable our What they see is the finished product — story is and how well that story is told. and they are universally wowed by the Those visitors returning months or even result, sometimes even moved to years after their last tour are especially expressions of pride or tears. That’s struck by how much the museum has when you realize all the time and effort changed and continues to change. is SO worth it. That’s also when you Although we always like to hear feed- look around and think back to how that back from our patrons, these reactions exhibit used to look, how that space was are especially gratifying because they utilized or what that vehicle looked like help remind our staff and volunteers when it was just a restoration project how important what they do is and how waiting to happen. That is when you see much progress we’ve made — and how far we’ve come and have absolute continue to make. faith in where we are going. When you are at the museum every day Examples of this reality abound — from or every week, it is easy to lose sight of the newly restored WWII fire truck that progress. This is because you see it which just entered the collection, to the incrementally and you help it move along new artifacts and exhibit cases recently step by small step. Some of those steps installed in the War on Terror exhibit, come far slower than you wish they like a multi-cam uniform worn by one of would, and a few are much harder than our engineers in Afghanistan, a dummy you thought they would be. For every IED used as a training aid, a 1/4-scale project completed you always know F-16 fighter and a stunning new exhibit there are dozens more waiting in the case to display Major General Garrett’s wings, and knowing they are all ex- collection of captured German Lugers tremely important, you feel like you just and Nazi daggers. There is the new can’t get to any of them fast enough. paint in the museum’s offices, the new break room for our hard-working But then someone stops by and heaps volunteers, the fact that we’ve already praise on the end result of all of that exceed 15,000 visitors this year and that work done by so many dedicated and the calendar is teeming — and I mean talented volunteers and the museum’s teeming — with school tours, summer staff. Those visitors weren’t around to camp tours, vacation bible school and see the time consuming and challeng- scout tours. Every time you go out into ing work that went in to making a new the Great Hall, Lisa and the docents are exhibit or finding aid. They weren’t here leading groups of young people around to see the meticulous effort that goes the museum and teaching them about into processing, cataloging and housing their history and the price that has been artifacts. Nor did they see the hours paid for their freedom. spend doing research so that exhibit Continued on page 8 4 Deputy Director’s Report LISA SHARIK Spring is officially over; it was 109 degrees A few of the many new donations since the last newsletter include: yesterday! The museum was very busy with both Muster Day and Close Assault events this spring. Muster Day set attendance records this year. We had around 4,000 people who came through the museum itself, as well as the thousands who saw German MP 40 brought the reenactments over both days. The museum back as a WWII souvenir. will be doing a fundraising event in September. Check the included flyer for more information. We have had school and summer camp tours almost every day this summer. In addition our regular visitation is way up. A big thank you to our docents for handling this extra load. One of our spring interns, Nora, has moved on but Jordon continues to intern for us this summer. Kudos to both Nora and Jordon for an outstand- ing job; almost all of the donation backlog has been cataloged. We will have two new interns Scarf from the 182nd Fighter Squadron which belonged to 1861 Richmond Newspaper with starting this fall and the intern program paid, for Sgt. Wade Spears who served with an article on the Battle of Wilson’s by the TXMF Historical Foundation, is a huge this Texas Air National Guard Creek, the first major Civil War help to our overworked museum staff. unit during the Korean War. battle west of the Mississippi. Congrats to former volunteer Robert Gates III on Some previously uncataloged items from the museum’s collection: his marriage in June to Erika — our best wishes to the newlyweds. On a somber note, as many of you are aware, long-time Museum volunteer and Foundation President, Colonel Al Lloyd, passed away in March.