2009 Open House
October 29, 2009 -
What a great weekend!
Even though there was extensive rain throughout the Northern Virginia region on Saturday, we were largely spared for most of the day at the Tank Farm. A few quick sprinkles in the late morning and early afternoon, but no real rain until 3:00.
Combining the experience of long-time traffic counters as well as estimates based on hard numbers of lunch sales, we believe that we had 700-800 attendees on Saturday and 1,200-1400 on Sunday. Our biggest Open House yet.
So many highlights:
- 50 or 60 armored vehicles out on display
- The capabilities of 10 vintage tanks demonstrated
- A Huey helicopter flown in for display by the DC Army National Guard
- A special ceremony honoring several World War II veterans who were present, including Bob Overkott, a survivor of the disastrous launch of 29 amphibious tanks on D-Day
- Flame thrower and small arms demonstrations by the United States Marine Corps Historical Company
- Helicopter rides provided by American Helicopters, Inc.
- Remote controlled, to scaled model tanks—a real hit with the boys!
- A cadre of re-enactors
- Camo face painting for the kids
- Armored vehicle rides for membership raffle winners
- New NMAW T-shirts for all new members
- And much more
For the Museum, we were very pleased to add nearly 200 new members to our cause. More importantly, however, we believe that we were able to show our visitors in a fun and respectful way how our Museum will achieve our vision of honoring those who serve(d) our country in times of war.
Special thanks to Allan Cors, our chairman and owner of the Tank Farm and his amazing collection of vintage armored vehicles, Nancy Coursen, Elizabeth Newberry, Marc Sehring, Alan Berry, Bruce Oppenhagen, Larry Tucker, and so many other great volunteers and participants.
We will have more photos and film available soon, but our good friend Bob Miller has already posted some great shots and video clips on his milblog:
I just wanted to say thank you for a fine job you folks did last weekend. Allan Cors, Craig Stewart, Rich and all the volunteers did a fantastic job with the event. I won one of the “tank drives” on Saturday and it was the chance of a life time. I drove around several of my fellow RC tankers and we all had a fantastic time despite the tempermental weather. Sunday was beautiful and I greatly enjoyed displaying my 1/16 scale Jagdtiger tank on the field with Rich’s narration. He was a fine M C and very entertaining fellow. I run the North East Armored Division for RC tanking and I plan on putting together a more formal demo (with your approval) for next years event. One again thank you for your efforts in perserving history and educating our youth.
Bob Held CO NEAD