AAC
F a m i l y & F r i e n d s
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Museum honors Bradley County veterans Photos of men and women in uniform grace walls Story and Photos by Michael Dougherty For County Lines
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vision of what one expects to see upon entering a veterans museum might range from an artillery cannon and rifles to medals and other smaller memorabilia. A few items from the latter category are featured in the display cases that line the walls of the Bradley County Veterans Museum, but this facility primarily shows a visitor the people from this south Arkansas county who have represented the United States by serving in the armed forces. The walls are lined with picture frames — almost 2,700 of them. Most of them showcase photographs of those men and women from Bradley County. A few of the frames house a piece of paper on which the name of such a veteran is printed. Those names are the primary targets for director John Little and his band of dedicated volunteers who keep the museum operating. They want each frame to feature a photograph of a Bradley County veteran. In most cases, the photographs are of a veteran in military uniform. That’s the first choice for the display frames. But if a photograph in civilian garb is all they can find, Little and members of the board of directors of Bradley County Veterans Inc. will be proud to place it on the wall. “We’d rather have [a photograph] of the veteran in uniform,” Little said, “but if another picture is all the family has to give us or if that’s all we can find, we’ll take it.”
Little, 75, is from Warren and has lived here most of his life. He flew helicopters unofficially (when he was listed as a mechanic) his first time in the Army and was a trained pilot of helicopters when he re-entered the Army after he went to school, later flying them on missions in Vietnam. After retiring from the service with his 20 years in, he traveled the country, working with pilots in National Guard units. It was during one of those trips in the 1990s that Little got the idea for what is now the Bradley County Veterans Museum. “I stopped at a museum up there in Branson (Missouri) and it had all these photographs of these people who had served,” Little said. “Now, they had other things on display there … the military stuff, things like that … and they charged people admission. But even though that wasn’t the main part of that museum, those photographs are what I came away with, and that’s where the idea for this museum came from.” BUILDING CONSTRUCTED IN 1922 he building housing the Bradley County Veterans Museum originally was an American Legion Hut built by veterans of the First World War upon their arrival home in Warren. It was completed in 1922. It served as the home of numerous community organizations over the years, including various veterans groups. But by 2002, it had reached a state of decline that appeared to have it on a list for dismantlement. That’s when members of the local chapters of the American Legion (Martin-Tate Post 82), Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW Post 4564) and Disabled American Veterans (DAV Chapter 11) met and decided to form Bradley County Veterans Inc. as a 501(c) (3) organization to try to save the structure and create the Bradley County Veterans Museum. The group developed a 10-part plan that started with the jacking up of the building, reworking the foundation and adding new window sills. From there, volunteers with the project added a new roof and then made necessary repairs and improvements to electrical, plumbing, carpentry and painting elements, as well as placing siding to the building. The flooring material consists of ¾-inch
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The museum commemorates the service of members of the U.S. armed forces who hailed from Bradley County. 36
COUNTY LINES, spring 2014
