Louisiana Voice

It’s not the World War II Museum in New Orleans.

It doesn’t have huge grants underwriting its operations.

It doesn’t have a famous movie star promoting it.

Machine gunner

And it’s not exactly overrun with visitors

But the War Museum in Ruston, while operating on a meager budget and with a single curator, is built on the very personal memories of every person who contributed a gun, a uniform, medals, or other memorabilia.

Contributors like Chaplain James White of Minden

Or Ruston’s Major General Hal McCown

Museum curator Ernest Stevens is owner of a sheet metal company he took over from his dad.

Ernest is a veteran of Vietnam and for decades I, along with a lot of other folks around Ruston thought that was him wading across a river on the cover of Life Magazine back when the war was going full bore. During a recent visit to Ruston, I dropped in on Ernest to take the tour. That photo came up in the conversation and Ernest assured me that the soldier in the photo was not him. So much for that local legend.

I’ve know Ernest for the better part of 55 years now and he, like me, is a bit heavier and a lot grayer but the handshake and warm welcome is just as fresh and enthusiastic as it was before he left for that awful war. He, like so many hundreds of thousands like him, was just a boy then.

What would a Vietnam veteran running a military museum do

without a couple of relics from ‘Nam?

Ernest (forget that, I’m calling him by the name I knew 55 years ago). Ernie said veterans who gathered for meetings of the VFW (where the museum is housed) began bringing souvenirs to meetings to show fellow members. “Before long, we just started an informal display and that grew to what we have today,” he said.

Daily warning for wartime workers during WWII

“Pretty soon, veterans of various wars were bringing in all sorts of items, from vintage radios, to wartime equipment, even uniforms worn by the enemy,” Stevens said.

Uniforms of the Axis Powers

Survivors of Bataan never forgot; some never forgave

A mighty U.S. naval fleet, nearly destroyed at Pearl,

rose to dominate the seas

Back home, there was the German P.O.W. camp between Grambling and Simsboro—later a hospital for tuberculosis patients and later still, the site of Ruston State School

Weapons and uniforms of War

Playing war games while listening for news

from the front on upright radio

If you’re in Ruston, drop by the museum on East Georgia next to the old swimming pool and say hello to Ernie. He’ll drop everything he’s doing and give you the tour. And when you do, don’t forget to sign the register and leave a donation. The ones who contributed these artifacts sacrificed much and when you thank them for their service, look them in the eye and say it like you mean it.