(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Goldstar Military Museum at Camp Dodge in Johnston is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Museum curator Mike Vogt says the museum idea came from retired World War Two veteran and National Guardsman Al Rolfes from Le Mars, who noticed photos and memorabilia in buildings around Camp Dodge. “He made the comment at a meeting one time of the Iowa National Guard Memorial Association. He said, ‘You know, it’s too bad all that stuff isn’t gathered together somewhere, so when the soldiers come to drill or people come to Camp Dodge, they can learn something about the state’s, military history, ‘” Vogt explains. Vogt says that comment came in the early 1980’s and since Rolfes had the idea, he was put in charge of making it happen.

“The Museum’s origins date back to its first open house in late June of 1985 on the first floor of the Chapel. After about ten years, they moved into the old headquarters building. In the mid-1990s and then via an appropriation from the state legislature in the early 21st century recognized the importance of the stories that we told out here, we received funding to put 18-thousand square feet on,” he says. They started with the photos and memorabilia linked to the Iowa National Guard and Vogt says about 20 years ago they opened things up to include all branches of the service to recognize all Iowans who served. That now includes tanks and airplanes that sit outside the museum.

Goldstar Military Museum curator Mike Vogt (back row sixth from left) with other reinactors. (RI photo)

“Those are all loaned to us from the U-S Army Museum system. So they’re hand receipted to the museum. They still belong to the taxpayers and, they’re cared for here at Camp Dodge by the National Guard personnel and by museum staff,” Vogt says. “But 99 percent of the artifacts in our collection are donated, either by the veterans themselves, or by their descendants.” The exhibits inside expanding to tall the various stories of Iowa veterans, including a Cold War era periscope that you can use to look out over the base. Vogt says there is room to add some more exhibits as the Goldstar Museum moves forward. “We have some gallery area that we would like to develop into a temporary exhibit space. There has been some discussion of adding on maybe an auditorium, so we could have programs and seat more visitors,” he says. “There’s been talk about putting an addition onto the museum that would hold some of our larger items that are currently on cement pads outdoors.”

Vogt says the exhibits are important so everyone can see how soldiers and sailors and airmen lived, but the most important part is getting the stories behind the artifacts. “When the items come in, if they come in from the veterans themselves, they’re the only ones that can provide the unique story of how they obtained that item, whether it was foreign or issued to them, or picked up as a souvenir,” Vogt says. “So, if you can capture that story that’s related to the item, that’s what really provides that connection between the artifact and the Iowa veteran’s story.”

The Iowa Goldstar Military Museum is open 9 a-m until 3 p-m Tuesday through Friday, and Saturday from 10 a-m until 2 p-m. It is free and open to the public.