Day 22: The National WWII Museum, New Orleans

2026 Rally4Vets America Grand Tour

After yesterday’s long, rain-soaked haul into New Orleans, today I got to stand still and let the history come to me. I spent the day at the National WWII Museum, and it more than lived up to everything I’d heard.

I’ll say this up front, the way the museum itself does: plan for at least two days. I gave it one, and I barely scratched the surface. There is that much to see.

A Museum Built to Move You

You walk in aircraft are hanging right over your head, fighters and bombers suspended in the great glass atrium, with tanks and trucks and an ambulance on the floor below. It’s the kind of space that makes you stop and just look up. “Final Mission” and the submarine experience sit off to one side; the whole hall is designed to put you inside the war, not just in front of it.

The exhibits go deep. The Desert War diorama drops you into North Africa – a jeep half-buried in the sand, a signpost reading Berlin 1,288 miles, and touchscreens where you can pull up the soldiers’ own accounts. This isn’t glass cases and plaques. It’s immersion.

The Stories We Don’t Always Hear

Two exhibits stayed with me. One was Mail Call – the story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the segregated unit of African American Women’s Army Corps soldiers who cleared a backlog of millions of pieces of mail that everyone else had given up on. 855 women, working around the clock, processing 65,000 pieces per shift. History most of us were never taught and, like the WASP I wrote about a few days back, a reminder of how many people served in ways the textbooks skipped.  I remember the value of mail from my own experience in Vietnam when there weren’t any phonecalls.

The other memorable experience was a wall of dog tags. Sixteen point four million of them. That’s how many Americans served in World War II, fighting to preserve freedom around the world. You read the number, and it stays abstract. Seen rendered in metal, tag after tag from floor to ceiling, it becomes real. Every one of those was a person.

A VMI Moment

Out in the courtyard, I came around a corner and found a statue of General George C. Marshall, gloves and cap in hand, over the words “The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything.” As a VMI man, that one meant something. Marshall walked the same parade ground I did.

It’s hard to overstate what he meant to this country. He ran the entire U.S. Army through the Second World War as its Chief of Staff. Then, as Secretary of State, he authored the plan that carried his name – the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt a shattered Western Europe and set the terms of the peace that followed. He remains the only career soldier ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. That’s the reach of one graduate.

I believe VMI holds a special place among America’s military colleges. Seeing Marshall honored here, among the machines and the memory of the war he helped win and the world he helped rebuild, made me proud of the Institute all over again.

There was one more exhibit worth mentioning — a screen asking visitors what message they’d send to the World War II generation. “Thank you for saving the world.” “Thank you for protecting the future generations of our country.” Simple words from strangers, scrolling by. That’s the whole reason I’m out here on this road.

The French Quarter

I closed the day in the French Quarter, where the Louisiana Purchase was signed – the deal that doubled the size of this country in a single stroke of a pen. More history, layered right on top of the day I’d already had. New Orleans doesn’t run out of it.

Housekeeping

A practical note from the road: the WRX finally got a bath. Five days in and out of rain had left it plastered with mud and bugs, so I ran it through a car wash and got it looking like a rally car again instead of a rolling insect collection. She’s earned the clean-up.

Looking Ahead

Tomorrow, July 3rd, I point east for Apalachicola, Florida, with a stop at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial along the way. From a museum full of these machines to standing on the deck of the real thing — a fitting next chapter.

What a country. What a day.

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