Photo By Scott Sturkol | A scene from the 2024 Fort McCoy Armed Forces Day Open House is shown May 18, 2024, at...... read more read more
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An estimated audience of nearly 4,000 visitors participated in the 2024 Fort McCoy Armed Forces Day Open House on May 18 at Fort McCoy, which included a Vietnam veterans welcome home ceremony, Army band performances, numerous military vehicle static displays, bus tours, and much more.
The day’s activities were centered on the Commemorative Area from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., which features the History Center; five World War II-era buildings filled with historical equipment and displays, the outdoor Equipment Park, and Veterans Memorial Plaza.
Within the Commemorative Area, there were dozens of displays set up under tents for more interactive fun. Planned activities included guided installation bus tours, a sandbag-filling station, personalized ID tags, camouflage face painting, military equipment displays, marksmanship galleries, the special ceremony honoring Vietnam veterans, and more.
Open house visitor Catrice Jackson Boyer wrote on a Facebook post about the event that she enjoyed participating. “Even the bus drivers were great!! Nice job everyone!”
Another attendee, Dave Jorgensen, also wrote on Facebook, “Had a great day there with the grandsons. Favorites were the bus tour, historical vehicles and buildings, shooting simulation, talented band, and the belly crawl! Thanks to all for your service!”
The Army Reserve’s 204th Army Band set up to play music in the heart of the Commemorative Area. The band has played at the event in previous years and is often a crowd favorite.
The Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch (NRB) brought back its popular display that included some of the wildlife found on post, such as turtles, frogs, and snakes. For the 2024 event, Endangered Species Biologist Jessup Weichelt, Forestry Technician Tim Parry, and Natural Resources Specialist Jessica Salesman, all with NRB, showed wildlife to hundreds of visitors.
“It was as wonderful as ever,” Weichelt said about the open house. “There’s never much down time when you’re working the NRB booth.”
The 2024 open house also featured a new layout and flow for visitors, an updated bus tour route throughout the installation that hundreds took advantage of, the continuation of food vendors, and for a second straight year there was a special history and heritage edition of The Real McCoy newspaper for visitors to take home.
During the Vietnam veteran welcome home ceremony that took place at the beginning of the open house, more than a dozen Vietnam veterans participated and dozens of other people were in attendance to honor them, including current-day veterans and active service members.
Also, back at the open house were members of the Fort McCoy archaeology team. This included Garrison Archaeologist Ryan Howell with the NRB and Archaeologists Miranda Alexander and Tyler Olsen with the Colorado State University’s Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands who partner with Fort McCoy.
“We had a lot more traffic this year than last year,” Howell said. “People seem to enjoy the atlatl spear throwing, and the kids really were interested in the flintknapping (arrowhead making) we did this year. Some actually stayed several hours to finish their own arrowheads.”
All the visitors also took time to hike through the historical buildings. Between 1992 and 1995, five adjoining World War II troop buildings — three barracks, a “mess hall” facility, and an administrative building — in the 900 block of the cantonment area permanently were set aside for commemoration purposes. These buildings are now set up for the public to view with a myriad of historical displays.
Also available to visitors was the Equipment Park. This was established in the mid-1990s to complement the Commemorative Area buildings. What began as an initial outdoor display of five pieces of equipment (“macro-artifacts”) increased over time to what is today a display of 70 different items, and soon more items will make their way to the park.
All of the items on display in the Equipment Park specifically were selected in keeping with the Commemorative Area mission statement to present pieces of military equipment that are representative of what was used here at Fort McCoy in the past.
Visitors also stopped by the Fort McCoy History Center. The center features exhibits and displays of artifacts, photographs, and period memorabilia. The History Center serves to tell the story of Fort McCoy based on the military personnel who trained here and the civilian workforce who supported the service personnel who passed through the installation.
The final piece of the Commemorative Area people visited was the Fort McCoy Veterans Memorial Plaza which was built to honor all who have served. Construction on this memorial began in 2006, records show. The five Soldier statues are representative of each of the major conflicts that Fort McCoy had been involved with to that point in time: i.e., World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the war on terrorism. The formal dedication of Veterans Memorial Plaza was June 13, 2009.
Others supporting the open house as well included the 88th Readiness Division; 86th Training Division; Regional Training Site (RTS)-Maintenance; RTS-Medical; Fort McCoy Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security; Fort McCoy Directorate of Emergency Services; Fort McCoy Directorate of Human Resources; Fort McCoy Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation; Wisconsin Military Academy; Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works; Fort McCoy Logistics Readiness Center; Fort McCoy Garrison staff; Wisconsin National Guard, Army Recruiting; Wisconsin Air National Guard; Fort McCoy Noncommissioned Officer Academy; and several other organizations.
“We had great weather for the event, and we had another fantastic turnout for the event,” said Fort McCoy Public Affairs Officer Tonya Townsell. “Thank you to everyone who supported the event to make it a success once again. It’s this team effort that makes it the great event that it is. Additionally, thank you to all who visited to see what we have here at Fort McCoy. We’re looking forward to another great event in 2025.”
The next Fort McCoy Armed Forces Day Open House will be held May 17, 2025.
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/fmpao, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
| Date Taken: | 05.23.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 05.23.2024 18:22 |
| Story ID: | 472192 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 265 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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