As we told you earlier, we have a very special program Friday -- special in two ways. First, we have "Tunnel Rat" C.W. Bowman speaking again about his experiences in Vietnam at a Relic Room Noon Debrief. Second, the free lecture will be in a brand-new location -- Cayce-West Columbia... read more →
Apr
30
Apr
23
On May 2, the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum’s Noon Debrief series of free lectures will debut in a new location. And it will be a particularly fascinating first-person program: “Tunnel Rats of Vietnam.” The speaker will be one of the... read more →
Apr
17
We all remember – if we’re old enough – the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, particularly the image of that helicopter trying to evacuate people from a rooftop. The next day, May Day, the triumphant North Vietnamese declared the formation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Millions of... read more →
Apr
03
You know about the Doolittle Raid – or at least, you should. On April 18, 1942 – just over four months after the Pearl Harbor attack – sixteen B-25B Mitchell medium bombers took off from an American aircraft carrier, and bombed Tokyo. They did this without any fighter escort, and... read more →
Mar
28
The eight-shot, semiautomatic M1 Garand rifle got the American infantryman through both the Second World War and Korea. General George S. Patton called it "the greatest battle implement ever devised.” But times change, and so do standard-issue rifles. Next, the military tried something that at a distance looked a lot... read more →
Mar
19
You’ve heard of John Paul Jones, the first great hero of the United States Navy. But remember that in his heyday, there was no “U.S. Navy” as we think of it. All we had was the prequel, the Continental Navy. And we had yet to build a single warship. At... read more →
Mar
14
When did our country make itself independent from British rule? Was it when the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired at Lexington? Was it when John Hancock and 55 other patriots signed the Declaration in Philadelphia? Was it at Yorktown? Or did it take until 1783, when the Treaty... read more →
Feb
26
“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government,” said George Washington. And how well do you think we’re doing with that right now? Not so well. In fact, if we look around at the political turmoil around us, we might assume we’ve failed... read more →
Feb
26
(In photo above, Myron Harrington uses a radio during the assault on Dong Ba tower during the Battle of Huế in 1968.) The Relic Room lost a friend, and the whole country lost a hero – a great American – on Feb. 19, when Col. Myron Harrington, USMC-Ret., passed away... read more →
Feb
04
Few of us are experts on the Vietnam War, but most of us have heard that perhaps the greatest flaw in the way the United States conducted it was that military higher-ups in Saigon collected, believed and passed to Washington information that indicated the fight was going better than it... read more →