This Giving Tuesday, please join our mission by donating to the Voices of Freedom project. This project allows us to continue to meet with veterans and record their stories of sacrifice, courage; and makes sure our military history is preserved. As a matter of fact, Voices of Freedom is celebrating their 10th anniversary on December 10th! We'll share more about that in our January newsletter. Please help us celebrate by donating today!
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Now, listen to Colonel John Fenzel share his personal military experience below.
Voices of Freedom
On July 3rd, 2020, the Voices of Freedom Project had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Col. John Fenzel, United States Army (Ret.) in Annapolis, Maryland. Col. Fenzel has a deep heritage to history, as his grandfather served in WWI and his father served in WWII. He, himself, served as a Green Beret in critical battles from Saudi Arabia to Desert Shield/Storm to Bosnia and more.
When his boots hit the ground in Saudi the only thing standing between the Iraqi Army and Saudi Arabia was his team made up of 12 soldiers. They were the sole line of defense. When Desert Storm officially kicked off, and the ground war started, John and his team were again called to action becoming the first combat troops to fight along with an armored unit. John recalls his experiences during Desert Shield/Storm as a seminal event in his life. He even testified at The Hague for a soldier that was wrongly accused of war crimes. Col. Fenzel learned that building relationships, even with the enemy, was critical to mission success. He stated that being a Green Beret was far more art than science.
On September 11, 2001, John found himself in Washington D.C., on the staff of Vice President Cheney. When the planes hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, John was in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House. In the weeks and months that followed, John became instrumental in the shaping of the terrorist warning system that we all became intimately familiar with. After a prestigious career serving under five U.S. presidents, John retired at the rank of Colonel in 2012.
“At the end of the day when you look back, what really stands out are the quality of the people that you were with …. and you remember those people because those are the ones that made you who you are. If you have that, you have this remarkable reservoir of strength that you ordinarily would not have.” - Col. John Fenzel
Since our interview with Col. Fenzel, his organization, NewDay USA, enjoyed a day at our Tank Farm learning about the tanks and their history as well as getting their hands dirty in taking care of the tanks. And a day at the Tank Farm, of course, must include a tank ride!
NewDay USA has generously made a donation to The Museum, which we are very grateful!
An Update from the Motor Pool
This year has been a challenging one so far. Due to the Coronavirus lockdown, we have had very limited volunteer help and one of our restoration team was deployed with the Virginia National Guard. The shop has continued to do restoration and maintenance but at a slower rate.
The Centurion Mk 12 restoration, repair, and maintenance have been completed with some videos posted to social media in the past few weeks.
We have been doing some mechanical work to the M1917 light tank, repairing the oil pump, water pump and the carburetor. This is now complete and has been test run.
The body work and upgrades to our World War II Dodge command car are done, as well. The next major restoration project is in the shop now. Photos will be posted as the restoration work is done (hint: late war TD).
Visit our Motor Pool at the Wartime Museum Facebook page
After the new year, we will begin hosting virtual tours of our military artifacts and our extensive inventory of tanks from WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam and current conflicts. We will be featuring a look into one of our country’s historical military vehicles.
