By: Simone Carter
Army-green tanks stand at attention outside the Lewis Army Museum next to Interstate 5 near DuPont. On display inside the Swiss Chalet-style building: decades-old shoe polish, pocketbook-sized paperbacks, soldiers’ diaries and handwritten letters to loved ones stateside.
It’s this rich catalog of soldiers’ experiences — an Army life lived both on and off the battlefield — that many are fighting to preserve. That’s because the museum at Joint Base Lewis-McChord is at risk of shuttering for good.
“Ever since they announced the closure, I’ve just — I keep welling up,” said volunteer Megan Nishikawa, a military historian and former fellow with the Friends of the Fort Lewis Military Museum.
“It’s been so tough.”
Last month, Army officials announced plans to close or consolidate several Army museums in the next three years in a massive system overhaul. The Army plans to downsize from 41 museums at 29 locations to a dozen field museums and four training support facilities at 12 locations.
The Army says many affected facilities operate in understaffed buildings with maintenance issues. That isn’t the case at the Lewis Army Museum, supporters contend.
On the day McClatchy visited in early July, tourists gazed at life-like mannequins of soldiers gripping guns. A group of young students streamed in to gawk at old gear.
Nishikawa said the number of visitors fluctuates seasonally, but that between 30,000 and 40,000 people come each year from all over the world.
Retired Maj. Thomas Langston Reeves “Brim” Smith serves today as a volunteer docent at the Army museum — the only one on the West Coast. “So we’re going to shut down military history for half the country,” he said.
Steve Bloom The Olympian
Smith said it’s rewarding anytime a veteran recognizes an item from their days of service. And the establishment allows the broader community to learn about Army life beyond what they’ve seen on TV.
Military museums are naturally big on battle scenes, Smith said. However, he added, gesturing toward a bag of toiletries on display, sometimes the behind-the-scenes details of daily life get missed.
“Because in my 22-and-a-half years of military service, I never fired a shot in anger,” he said. “But I lived the Army life.”
Why is the Army closing military museums?
When President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his administration wasted no time launching a wide-scale federal-cuts campaign. Federal programs, funding and jobs got slashed at a breakneck clip, much of it carried out under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
But the military-museum downsizing isn’t a DOGE push, said F. Lee Reynolds, spokesperson with the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH).
Reynolds described the museum-closure process as one that’s been years in the making, predating the current federal administration. It’s projected to save $114 million over the next 10 years.
The Army has cited a backlog of museum maintenance — some buildings “need a lot of work,” Reynolds said — as informing the effort. Other locations suffer from staffing shortages or lackluster visitation numbers.
Some affected museums will temporarily close before opening later as part of a combined museum complex, Reynolds said.
The Army is still going over a plan, with final approval likely to come later this month, he said. Some museums will be closed to the public starting this fall. As of now, the Lewis Army Museum is listed to shutter sometime in the coming two years, he said.
Reynolds highlighted the difficulty in making these decisions.
“The facilities that we will be able to maintain are going to be 21st-century world-class museum facilities that are going to tell the Army story,” he said. For those that are closing, “we are going to do our best to include parts of those stories in these sustaining museums.”
State Rep. Mari Leavitt, whose district includes the museum, was quite surprised to learn that it’s being targeted. The University Place Democrat said it doesn’t meet the closure criteria.
It isn’t run-down, Leavitt said, and it’s well-staffed. Plus it serves as a training facility for soldiers to learn about Washington military history.
“Certainly the battle is on, if you will, because I can’t imagine having Washington not have the Lewis museum,” she said.
Reynolds did not have details when pressed for information on expected cost savings associated with a potential Lewis Army Museum closure. He also didn’t know specifics on why the facility was named, but said officials will try to provide such answers after the approval of the closure-and-consolidation plan.
Where would Lewis Army Museum items go?
The items at the Lewis Army Museum are largely collected from Washington veterans and military units, Nishikawa said. Best-case scenario: They’ll get boxed up and stored in a warehouse somewhere. “Otherwise, things will actually be disposed of or destroyed,” she said.
Why?
Partly because of a lack of space, she said, and many of those objects could be redundant. The Army might not need multiples of the same type of historic firearm as it consolidates, for example.
“But these are special to here, special to veterans from here,” Nishikawa said of the Lewis Army Museum offerings. “So it’d be a shame to lose that heritage.”
Reynolds said that artifacts will not be thrown away. Spare items will either go into storage, be sent to another museum or put up for auction, he said.
Lawmakers react to Army museum closures
U.S. Rep. Marilyn Strickland registered her disapproval in a June 30 letter sent to Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll.
The Washington Democratic Congress member wrote that the Lewis Army Museum’s planned closure will “harm the community’s ability to connect with and find inspiration in the proud history of the Army in the Pacific Northwest, and service members and families stationed in the area will lose an important asset.”
Strickland, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, referenced the recent $45 million parade for the Army’s 250th birthday at the U.S. capital. Meanwhile, at $35 million, the entire operating budget for all CMH museum facilities is less than that one event, she pointed out.
“Shuttering local museums and consolidating CMH facilities from 41 to 12 contradicts your previous statements about ‘empowering an entire new generation of America’s youth to catch the spirit to serve our nation,’” she wrote.
Strickland urged Driscoll to reconsider the museum closures, including the one in Washington state.
Leavitt also cited concerns about the decision’s possible downstream consequences on Army retention and recruitment.
“All of our military history matters to Washington, and it’s such an important component of our state,” she said in an interview. “The thought of losing that understanding and that history to a very far-away place — perhaps to a warehouse — really is disappointing, and in my view, very shortsighted.”
Lewis Army Museum’s deeper meaning
For many, the Lewis Army Museum represents more than its artifacts and archives.
A wedding was held inside the museum after the couple’s venue got canceled at the last minute, Nishikawa noted. Soldiers are struck with newfound appreciation for their gear by interacting with gear from the past. And a ghost is said to have taken up residence in a hallway on the third floor.
Smith said sometimes a visitor will produce an old patch, or maybe a photo of their grandfather’s uniform, so that he can decode its meaning.
Once, he answered questions for a woman who wanted to know what her dad did in the Army. Two years later, she told the museum she’d penned a book about her parents’ wartime love story; today it’s carried in the gift shop.
One of Smith’s favorite things is when someone approaches him with a box and asks him to examine relics of a bygone era. Perhaps their veteran father never talked about the war. What can Smith tell them about his service?
If the museum closes, he won’t get to do that anymore.
Asked what those moments mean to him, Smith’s voice got caught in his throat.
“I can’t say what it means to me,” he said. “Whenever I have one of those things, I’m good for the next month.”
Nishikawa nodded.
“Being the guardians of that: that trust,” she said. “People trust us to take care of the legacies, you know? You can’t take care of the legacy if it’s gone.”