Curtis W. Fentress, FAIA, RIBA of Fentress Architects, designed the museum building. The exterior design is meant to "evoke the image of the flag raisers of Iwo Jima," an image that is also preserved by the USMC War Memorial. The 210 ft steel spire is like the Iwo Jima flagpole. The museum is a tribute to the U.S. Marines who have served their country since 1775.
The new museum replaces the Marine Corps Historical Center, in the Washington Navy Yard, which closed 1 July 2005, and the Marine Corps Air-Ground Museum, in Quantico, Virginia, which closed on 15 November 2002.
The museum building was designed for expansion. New galleries can be added around the circular lobby. On June 5, 2010, 12,000 square feet of additional galleries were added. They cost $12 million.
In October 2010, skylights in the museum lobby were shot on two different evenings as a part of the Northern Virginia military shootings. On April 14, 2011, the Semper Fidelis Memorial Park was dedicated. It covers 23.2 acres and includes 1.07 miles of new walking trails.
The Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, established in 1979, is a private, non-profit organization which was established in support of historical programs of the Marine Corps. The MCHF programs initially included "education, awards, publications, special projects, preservation..." In 1999, the Foundation expanded its mission to include the creation of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
The National Museum of the Marine Corps is designed to be the centerpiece of a complex of facilities called the Marine Corps Heritage Center. This multi-use, campus includes the Semper Fidelis Memorial Park and Semper Fidelis Chapel; a demonstration area with parade grounds; hiking trails and other outdoor recreational offerings; a conference center and hotel; and an archive facility to restore and preserve Marine artifacts.
The chapel, designed by Fentress Architects, was completed in 2009 with a donation of $5 million from a retired Marine.
The museum features the following permanent exhibits, which were designed by Christopher Chadbourne and Associates, Inc.:
On 5 June 2010 the following three exhibits were opened.
The historical exhibits including displays of artifacts, multimedia, and full immersion experiences. For example, the exhibit on wintertime in the Korean War is in a room cooled to a lower temperature. The museum building also include class rooms, a theater, a gift shop, bar and a restaurant.
The museum hosts lectures by historians and military experts. The Marine Corps Band performs a summer concert series. The Arts Mentorship Program has interships for student artists attending the Prince William County schools.
Celastrales
Celastrales is an order of flowering plants. They are found throughout the tropics and subtropics, with only a few species extending far into the temperate regions. There are about 1200 to 1350 species in about 100 genera. All but 7 of these genera are in the large family Celastraceae. Until recently, the composition of the order and its division into families varied greatly from one author to another.
Celastraceae
Celastraceae the staff-tree family, in the order Celastrales, comprising about 55 genera of woody vines, shrubs, and trees, native in tropical and temperate zones but best known for ornamental forms of the genera "Euonymus" and "Celastrus" (bittersweet). Fruit of the family is often colourful. Leaves are frequently leathery and flowers are small, with four to five sepals and petals; alternating between the petals, stamens rise from a usually conspicuous nectar disk.
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery is a cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia. People who served in the United States military are buried here. The cemetery started during the American Civil War. It is on a big farm called Arlington House. Arlington House was the home of Mary Anna Custis Lee. Mary Anna Custis Lee was a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. She was also the wife of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Although most of the farm now has graves, the old farmhouse still stands in the middle of the cemetery. The cemetery is across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..
The cemetery covers . People who died serving the United States in a war, and military veterans are allowed to be buried in the cemetery. People are buried here who fought in wars from American Civil War to the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. People who were buried here before the Civil War were reburied after 1900.
Arlington National Cemetery is taken care of by the United States Army. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) and its land are taken care of by the National Park Service as a memorial to Lee. Recently, the way the cemetery is managed caused controversy.
George Washington Parke Custis was the grandson of Martha Washington, and grew up with Martha and George Washington. He got the land that now is Arlington National Cemetery in 1802. He began building Arlington House, where he lived with his wife Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis. The land and house was given to their only child that lived to be an adult, Mary Anna Custis Lee. She was married to Robert E. Lee, a West Point graduate and United States Army officer. When Fort Sumter was forced to surrender at the beginning of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln asked Lee to be the general of the federal army. Lee did not give an answer right away, but waited to see if his home state of Virginia would leave the Union.
Lee left the federal army when Virginia said it was leaving the United States. He decided he could not fight against his home state. He became the leader of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He then became commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee was a great commander and won several battles against the Union forces. Most Union officers thought Lee had broken his promises to the Union because he chose to fight against them. Part of Arlington was taken away from the Lee family and became a graveyard. Mostly Union dead are buried there.
Before the Civil War, the United States did not have large military-only cemeteries. Important generals were buried in the Congressional Cemetery with other important leaders. American military cemeteries were needed on distant frontiers, and near battles and hospitals where many soldiers died. When dead Civil War soldiers filled the burial grounds near Washington, D.C., Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs proposed in 1864 that of the Robert E. Lee family property at Arlington be taken for a cemetery.
During the Civil War, people invented tricks to capture or to make life hard for Americans that fought on the other side of the war. The government assessed taxes on properties and insisted that the owners appear in person to pay them. If the plantation owner did not come, the government would sell the land. The government bought Arlington at tax sale in 1864 for $26,800. Mrs. Lee did not show up in person, but rather had sent an agent to pay the $92.07 in property taxes that were owed for the land. The government turned away her agent, refusing to accept the tax payment. In 1874, Custis Lee, heir under his grandfather's will passing the estate in trust to his mother, sued the United States claiming ownership of Arlington. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Lee's favor in "United States v. Lee", deciding that Arlington had been taken illegally, Congress returned the land to him. The next year, Custis Lee sold it back to the government for $150,000. Custis Lee and Robert Todd Lincoln, Secretary of War and son of President Lincoln, were both present when the property was officially turned over to the government.
In 2011, Hurricane Irene killed six large trees at the cemetery. The 220-year-old "Arlington Oak" fell down near the grave of John F. Kennedy.